.

Green… Greener… Greenest…  

a doomsday pantoum

Zoom with raving saviors to Net Zero.
Bewail our frail and ailing habitat.
Become a carbon-taxing pseudo-hero.
Trade trilling tones for shrillest super-brat.

Bewail our frail and ailing habitat.
Jet far and wide to spread the force-fed word.
Trade trilling tones for shrillest super-brat.
Glower like a sour and steaming turd.

Jet far and wide to spread the force-fed word.
Superglue your digits to da Vinci.
Glower like a sour and steaming turd.
Beam a nasty glance that’s grim and grinchy.

Superglue your digits to da Vinci.
Snivel like a fretful Chicken Little.
Beam a nasty glance that’s grim and grinchy.
Spew the words How dare you! flecked with spittle.

Snivel like a fretful Chicken Little.
Forewarn that if we breed we’ll speed Earth’s death.
Spew the words How dare you! flecked with spittle.
Make scurvy mortals pay for exhaled breath.

Forewarn that if we breed we’ll speed Earth’s death.
Become a carbon-taxing pseudo-hero.
Make scurvy mortals pay for exhaled breath.
Zoom with raving saviors to Net Zero.

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Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.

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43 Responses

  1. Martin Rizley

    Susan, With your verbal sabre drawn, you have once again succeeded in flaying gaia-worshipping globalists while tickling the funny bone of your readers. Though some might respond by saying, “how dare you!” I say, “Touche!” This is a really funny poem exposing the hypocrisy and absurdity of climate change extremists who leave their carbon footprint all over the skies as they spread their “force-fed” message of “austerity for thee but not for me”– who seek to impose the most radical measures to save Mother Earth from her matricidal children. Thank you for injecting a little levity into the present day madness with your humorous expressions that help to keep us from turning into “sour and steaming turds” just like the “raving saviors” who go zooming over our heads.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Martin, thank you very much for this wonderfully encouraging response to my doomsday pantoum. I tried to capture the absurdity of this truly hypocritical, money-making, power-grabbing stunt to “save Mother Earth from her matricidal children” – what a perfect way to put it! I hope those fooled by this skulduggery will soon see the light. I thoroughly appreciate your comment.

      Reply
  2. Mark Stellinga

    Susan, ‘Many a TRUTH is said in jest’, but rarely so succinctly, and done in such a clever style, so SJB distinctly, so let me be the ?th to say, before the others will, Gore and Greta’d both be dead if but your words could kill!

    Reply
      • Mark Stellinga

        Thank you, Cynthia, it’s caused by an addiction I’m not interested in curing. 🙂

    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Mark, I’m smiling broadly. Thank you very much for this rhyming gift of a comment. All I’m hoping for is that those who champion the extreme green scene will see exactly who these fraudsters are… soon. I’m glad you spotted an inconvenient culprit and a pouting, pigtailed puppet between the lines. 😉

      Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Thank you very much indeed, Russel! Your words are much appreciated!

      Reply
  4. Roy Eugene Peterson

    At last, a fitting rejoinder for Earth Day zealots deserving to be buried with acrimonious invective in brown waste. I join you in your disdain and distaste for reprehensible behavior protecting something the ignorant seek to elevate to a catechism and litany of activities to be taxed, banned, or at least castigated.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Roy, what spot-on observations. How did we come to this point, and with so many fooled by these frauds? Thank you very much for your sane eye and continued encouragement. I appreciate both, wholeheartedly.

      Reply
  5. Paul Freeman

    Very funny.

    But let’s not forget, on Earth Day, your Ode to an Osprey, a bird that declined to endangered levels due to DDT ingestion (through eating fish containing DDT insecticides) causing thinning and breaking of their egg shells, but which has thankfully bounced back after the EPA banned its use.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Paul, what does that have to do with the price of cheese? Even if the DDT story were true, Susan’s legitimate beef (pun intended) with such a hypocritical movement as the environmentalists would in no way be negated by her love of birds. You’re the one pitting them against each other as if they were somehow mutually exclusive.

      You need to understand that for us, who know about the Abortion Holocaust, the destruction of the family, the transgender movement targeting children with its pied-piper melody of “gender change” and leading them to sterilization, and more skeletons in the leftist closet than I have space to list here, you people have less moral credibility than Adolf Hitler himself. You think we just don’t “know the science.” Whether we do or not, we know what leftists are like. As I’ve said before, why should you people give a damn about future generations when you have no problems aborting your own children?

      Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Paul, I’m glad you found my poem funny. I often use humor to get an extremely serious point across. I care for the planet and all who inhabit it, which is exactly why I wrote this poem.

      Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Paul, why don’t you just sit back and write a series of laudatory odes to the EPA, Dr. Fauci, the CDC, Greta Thunberg, and all the other icons in your liberal religion? Wouldn’t that be more fulfilling for you?

      Reply
  6. Mike Bryant

    Susan, through several revisions, I laughed and laughed as you made this spot on gem funnier and funnier. Another commenter praised your ‘Ode to an Osprey’ which also props up your environmental credentials. I know that you are familiar with the lies associated with the DDT narrative, so I’ll only offer this quick look at the truth:
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/07/14/children-die-when-eco-lies-disrupt-the-war-against-mosquitoes/
    Why would anyone believe “THE SCIENCE” after what has occurred since 2020?
    Follow the science if you like the idea of Earth’s children getting “sicker and deader.”

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Mike gets a front row seat, and Susan has a live-in reviewer. Ideal arrangement!

      Reply
    • Mike Bryant

      Rachel Carson was just part of the radicalized “science” of her day. Everyone knows that the experiments she used to prop up her book were never replicated. Here is a comment from the article I linked above:

      MarkW
      Reply to
      Felix
      July 15, 2022 11:17 am
      The problem is that the data in support of egg thinning was completely fabricated.
      The chickens in the test were kept in a hot, noisy envronment and fed a calcium poor diet. All things known to cause shell thinning.
      They were also fed massive amounts of DDT, thousands of times greater than could ever be consumed in the wild.

      Lo and behold, the chickens had thin shelled eggs, and the conclusion was DDT must have caused it.

      The increase in the number of eagles and other raptors was due to the hunting bans. The hunting bans were put in place several years prior to the DDT bans, and the increases in raptor numbers also started several years prior to the DDT bans.

      This information is readily available, unless you are locked into mainstream media only. If you believe DDT is deadly, you probably believe Ivermectin is deadly as well.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Both Rachel Carson and Margaret Mead were far more interested in their agendas than in pursuing facts. Mead’s lies are so embarrassing that people in anthropology try to avoid talking about her.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        The supposed connection between Shakespeare and Marx is completely fabricated by addlepated academics on the make for tenure. Shakespeare was a closet Roman Catholic with a strong belief in kingship and hierarchy, and who was conservative enough to seek a coat-of-arms for his father, so that he himself might be a second-generation member of the gentry.

        None of this will prevent stupid professors from trying to create the connection. In fact, a friend of mine who just landed a teaching position in a university was told by her department that she was expected to teach only feminist and Marxist interpretations of Shakespeare. If anyone thinks that the author of The Taming of the Shrew had feminist sympathies, I imagine he’d also be idiotic enough to think the Bard of Avon believed in the dictatorship of the proletariat.

      • Mike Bryant

        I agree that Shakespeare was wholeheartedly capitalist. The lies seem to have no purpose except to demonstrate that our rulers have utter contempt for truth. They know that the mob will do whatever mental gymnastics necessary to believe and spread each new lie. It must be exhausting to live in such a small, confusing mind space.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        You’re right that evil rulers have contempt for us, and will tell us anything at all to maintain their power.

        But the intellectual source of this control lies in the widespread notion (championed today in every branch of academia except the STEM subjects) that knowledge is a SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ARTIFACT, constructed solely for political advantage and nothing else, and therefore changeable and subject to human manipulation at any time. In other words, “truth” and “knowledge” are as malleable as they are meaningless.

        This is completely contrary to what our inherited civilization says — namely, that truth is the conformity of thought with objective reality, and knowledge can be verified by checking that linkage.

        When you get enough idiots to believe that knowledge is just whatever happens to be useful today, anything goes.

      • Mike Bryant

        Have you heard about the big push for female crash test dummies?

        https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/04/22/watch-purple-haired-congress-creature-decries-gender-inequity-in-crash-test-dummies-n1689412

        The article points out the contradictions in this latest 75 million dollar move. Namely, if male and female depends on your notion of your own gender, then why must crash test dummies be differently constructed?
        If you are to buy in to the ever-changing current thing, you must learn to enjoy an ever-increasing cognitive dissonance.
        The sciences are not immune.

  7. Joshua C. Frank

    Susan, another great one! You’ve captured the thinking of those sanctimonious sourpusses very well! “Earth day” indeed!

    I especially love these lines:
    “Jet far and wide to spread the force-fed word.”
    “Beam a nasty glance that’s grim and grinchy./Spew the words How dare you! flecked with spittle.”
    “Forewarn that if we breed we’ll speed Earth’s death.”

    In California, people like that are a dime a dozen. They fly around the world to push recycling and similar things on other countries and then rag and moan about missionaries spreading their faith. They consume all that jet fuel and then think they each deserve a medal for using a hybrid car (never mind that the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuel). They carp on pregnant women for bringing one more child into the world they claim is overcrowded (anyone who thinks so can come to Texas and see how crowded it isn’t once you cross the edge of town)… unless it’s someone related to them and then they’re so happy they can cry.

    I think “the environment” is just a front for an excuse to control the people. Why do you think they call it “population control?”

    If you want to know the greenest way to live, just look at a traditional, non-industrial, agrarian village. Don’t believe the bull (pun intended) about how cattle are bad for the earth by their existence, especially not from the same people who say that about children.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Josh, I thoroughly appreciate your comment. I’m glad you like the poem, and I’m especially glad you understand exactly what’s going on. Your to-the-point observations complement my poem perfectly and should give those who think Earth Day is about saving the planet something to think carefully about before every last shred of humanity flies from Gaia’s surface. Thank you very much indeed!

      Reply
  8. Brian A Yapko

    Susan, this is a most entertaining and thought-provoking pantoum. You have a message that is scathing which is playfully developed with the repetends and the circular reasoning that comes with the subject. I think it is clear that the subject you are skewering is NOT love of the Earth nor reasonable environmental decisions. No one is saying that pollution and littering are good things, and I know of no one on these pages who loves nature more than you. No, you are skewering the hypocrisy, hysteria, dysfunction and tyrannical behavior of a certain breed of environmental activist — the zealots whose pipeline (no pun intended) to God is absolute, whose deep misanthropy is barely masked, whose contempt for anyone who doesn’t think like them is palpable, and whose reliance on Science is cherry-picked to support their misanthropic ideology. The solution they’re really promoting underneath it all is the elimination of 90% of humanity so Earth can recover from its infestation (that would be you and me.) As for Greta and others who throw tantrums, I can’t think of a single time when incoherent screaming actually resulted in positive change. But I guess they’re stuck as far as messaging. They can’t burn stuff down lest their hypocrisy be too glaring. Maybe they should try rewriting history or something.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Brian, I’m glad you approve of the pantoum, but more than that, I am grateful for your voice of reason and clarity. I’m with you on the littering and pollution front. I’m also right by your side on the “skewering the hypocrisy, hysteria, dysfunction and tyrannical behavior of a certain breed of environmental activist…”.

      Today is the day for shedding light on that behavior and I encourage all those who haven’t read Brian’s excellent light-shedding poems to read them now. They are also entertaining and thought-provoking. Knowledge really is power, and it’s about time “we the people” wrested some of it back.
      https://classicalpoets.org/2023/01/18/gretas-smorgasbord-of-hate-and-other-poetry-by-brian-yapko/

      Brian, thank you very much indeed!

      Reply
  9. Norma Pain

    Another brilliant poem Susan, that tells truth in a most entertaining way.
    Thank you.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Norma, thank you very much for his. I’m a huge supporter of the truth, and the more entertaining the more chance it may have of reaching a wider audience… that is my cunning plan. 😉 I thoroughly appreciate your support and your desire to get the thoroughly entertaining truth out there too!

      Reply
  10. Tiree MacGregor

    Susan, I wonder, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you kindly send “Green . . . Greener . . . Greenest” to Justin Trudeau and his cabinet?

    Well, if you like, I could do it. But it’s best Tweeted, I think, and I don’t do that. Of course, I’m not sure JT and the gang would understand the intent, given their IQ level. But then again, they might think the title says it all and reTweet the poem. They do stupider things daily.

    Many thanks.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Or maybe they just want us to think they’re stupid so we won’t see just how much they’re against the best interest of their own people.

      Reply
      • Tiree MacGregor

        Point taken. But, nah, Trudeau’s stupid. His advisors and globalist superiors are another matter. Rapacious, they’re far smarter, cynical, and dangerous than he is.

    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Tiree, I am smiling. I have a feeling Trudeau has no sense of humour, meaning satire would elude him. I have a very strong feeling my poem may well be mistaken for a job description encouraging a new, joy-sapping, sourpuss batch of insufferable eco-warriors… this plan could well backfire. Thank you very much for the giggle. 🙂

      Reply
  11. Jeff Eardley

    Susan, this is a wonderful poem, just as thousands of Climate protesters descend on London (by car, train or plane?) to (not) disrupt the London Marathon that raises so much for so many great causes. Their leaders always seem to be “Phoebe” or “Dominic,” banging on their African drums and pissing everybody off. I wish wish they would do something useful, like litter-picking, which always seems to be done by the unwoke, boomer generation, of which I am proud to say I belong to. Best wishes and hope the books are progressing.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Jeff, I’m thrilled you’ve enjoyed the poem. How awful to hear of these protesters disrupting the London Marathon, and you’re right about the litter they casually trail behind them with no thought of clearing it up… care for the planet, my arse! I’m with you on the boomer front… I’m on the cusp of the stoic, unwoke, litter-picking generation and proud to join you. My books are almost ready… sometime in May, I’ll be in print and I’m beginning to get excited. Jeff, thank you for your constant support and encouragement.

      Reply
  12. Margaret Coats

    Susan, this is good use of the pantoum form, and I like the internally rhyming epigraph “doomsday pantoum” (not to mention “Zoom” starting first and last lines). By making the poem an exhortation to Earth Day participants, you are able to create imperative lines that all make sense on their own, and combine to reflect on one another. Pantoums without a logic like this are often unsuccessful, but yours offers a description that rings true to logical readers, and could even touch Earth Day participants.

    I speak as a participant in the first Earth Day, 1970. It did some good in the communities served by my Florida high school. I was not interested in a boring rally on the football field. With books and the beach, there were far better ways to spend weekend time. But friends recruited me, and I agreed to collect cans thrown as litter on the roadsides. In fact, in after-school hours leading up to Earth Day, I may have contributed more to the showcase pile of cans than anyone. I was disgusted at how little effort the organizers made. There were two of them: a young male teacher trying to make a name for himself, and a student with nothing except a loud mouth to distinguish himself among students. The result of it all was that the teacher was allowed to spend a school day driving 5 students to the state capitol, to exhort our representatives. I got to be one of the five because of my can-collecting zeal, and because the teacher needed to choose two girls. In the hours driving to Tallahassee and back, I found out a lot about how Earth Day worked. When we arrived, one elected representative agreed to see us; nothing was arranged ahead of time! This Democrat enraged the organizers by saying pollution was an aesthetic problem that we should not get so worked up about, considering other important things the legislature had to do. He also pointed out that 3 of the 6 of us (including the teacher) were smoking and thus contributing to air pollution. Smoking was not allowed in school.

    My Earth Day 1970 efforts got me a reward, but not enough to pay for my time. For Earth Day 2023, hereabouts given the less strident name of Family Day, my town is closing major roads I used every day, so that families can walk and bicycle on them. It will be Sunday rather than Saturday. I don’t know which churches take the environmental grandstand, but from the vast number of NO PARKING signs already posted, I see that it may affect church attendance. It does NOT affect travel in and out of the areas with the highest-price homes.

    Earth Day may have become communal hysteria, but as at first, it depends on recruitment. That’s why your poem, Susan, may help some readers to resist, simply because they recognize what others around them are doing.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Margaret, I’m glad you liked my use of the pantoum and I’m especially glad you spotted the internal rhymes… it seemed the ideal form to get my concise message across clearly and with impact. Repetition is perfect for just that.

      I also appreciate your story – a story to learn from. I have always been an avid litter-picker. Tidying up after ourselves was instilled in us as school children, and litter dropping was an absolute, punishable no-no. I was also an avid recycler of rubbish until I found out about the money-making scams being pulled which had nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with power and greed.

      I hope my poem makes a difference to at least one person, Margaret. Thank you for your assistance in getting the truth out there.

      Reply
  13. Cynthia Erlandson

    Susan, you are the Mary Poppins of poetry— “practically perfect in every way!” Besides everything everyone else has said, the rhymes alone are hilarious: habitat/super-brat; force-fed word/steaming turd; da Vinci/grinchy; Chicken Little/flecked with spittle!

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Cynthia, I love your comment… I’m laughing at the thought of serving up the bitter truth with a spoonful of sugar to help it go down. I know you have a fine eye for rhymes, so I’m particularly thrilled to hear you’ve enjoyed some of my whackier rhyming moments. Laughter really is the best medicine in an ailing world – I’m over the moon you enjoyed my poem. Thank you!

      Reply
  14. Mike Bryant

    Speaking of funny…
    The https://extinctionclock.org/ website has collected doomsday predictions about climate and extinctions. The predictions are documented and each has its own timer. Every single prediction has failed or has not come to pass as yet.
    It is well worth a look.

    Reply
  15. Mike Bryant

    Now that Tucker Carlson has left Fox News, there is no reason to watch it anymore. All the more reason to move to Whatfinger.com for links to the boldest citizen Journalists.

    After being a part of the mainstream media all his life, Tucker Carlson has an epiphany.
    https://twitter.com/Lukewearechange/status/1650662552408391683?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1650662552408391683%7Ctwgr%5Ed8c4375d91b47b5aaf685ce0a17dcd16354b873c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fchoiceclips.whatfinger.com%2F2023%2F04%2F25%2Fdan-bongino-was-stunned-on-air-when-tucker-was-announced-as-gone-trump-responds%2F

    Reply

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