The Wreck Ahead Comes Into View
By Michael Peter Garofalo
What you see might never be,
Changed for the better by factories.
What you hear might bring you fear,
Of nuclear power plants coming here.
San Onofre, Humboldt Bay, Chehalis all Closed,
Nuclear waste locked in hot concrete commodes.
Diablo Canyon headed for the same fate,
San Luis Obispo, Avila, spared somewhat late.
We can't deny Fukushima's tsunami demise,
Our West Coast shares that Ring of Fire Alive.
We shudder and shake
in earthquakes strong.
Yes, it can
suddenly become horribly wrong.
Trash bags and an old couch tossed quick
along a 101 roadside poppy covered ditch.
Tourists screw up what’s little left, for fun,
leaving papers and cans, then they run.
Do we need to ship more TVs from Japan,
oil from America, or toys from Hunan?
Abandoned appliances, collapsed old abodes,
and bags of garbage lay along this old 101 road.
Each year, more animals living in the sea
are disappearing, becoming extinct, sadly.
Ignoring State rules, limits, permits
some steal from Nature without remiss.
Pee and shit sewage slips down into the river
filling the bay with another killer.
Do we need to ship more shoes from China,
cars from Japan, underwear from Vietnam?
Oil spills scum the oceanside scene
many fish and birds dead, it’s obscene.
Plastic bottle islands float on the sea
more garbage floats along for free.
Salmon over fished, abalone nearly gone,
otters and whales hunted for far too long.
Chemicals spills kill the shellfish beds,
poison people, leave much life dead.
Coal kept us warm in winter storms
Leaving acid rain as our polluted norm.
Natural Gas BURNing MegaWatt Plants;
factories not "plants", not Green.
Googleplexes think with AI. But
without immense power, they will die.
I shuffled out a Voyager Tarot spread, it said:
Time-Space, Negativity,
Disappointment,
Setback, Death.
The bees and birds disappear each day
as insecticides and diseases strip them away.
Coal BURNing Machines Make MegaWattsGrand
and strip mines Swallow Up more farming land.
Overpopulated cities gobble up all
electricity, food, water, and land for malls.
Do we need more cocaine from Columbia
meth from Mexico, or guns from America?
Second week of a very hot midnight sky;
worse news, the fresh water well is dry.
Forests were cut and not replanted
ruining watersheds, tree-huggers ranted.
Another oil spill on the West Coast,
decimating sea kelp forest hosts.
Our garbage dumps multiply, rise higher,
fouling the earth for decades in mire.
Droughts deplete the damned reservoir,
drinking water is rationed more.
Oil BURNing factories produce MegaWattsFast
and polluted gray Thick air that lasts.
Jet fumes flood the sky with grime
car exhaust fumes smog cut short our time.
Warming oceans, rising seas, spell our doom;
The Third Extinction over everyone looms.
I’d done my share to seal our Earth's sad fate
embarrassed, I changed
to tree hugging, ZPG, Tai Chi, driving less,
turning lights out, and gardening from age 28.
Nevertheless, my descendants in 2195, if any,
will blame
my generation, justifiably, for
our greed, carelessness,
over consumption,
our coal, oil, and plastic addictions,
our unwillingness to change our habits,
our hunger for novelty and bourgeois things,
our give a damn avarice and pride.
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
From: At the Edges of the West: Highway 101
25 Steps and Beyond: The Collected Works of Mike Garofalo
Mike Garofalo lives in Vancouver, Washington.
He is
80 years of age and retired. He worked
for 50 years in city and county public
libraries,
and in elementary
schools, colleges, and
bookstores. He graduated with
degrees in
philosophy, library science, and education.
25 Steps and Beyond: The Collected Works of Mike Garofalo
Exhibits at the Cyber Gazebo: Text Art and Concrete Poetry
This document was last edited, revised,
reformatted, added to, relinked,
changed, improved, or modified
by Mike Garofalo
on February 4, 2025.