.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

in reference to the recent storm in Maine

In Maine the Governor had to delay
A hearing where the government had planned
To air, promote, consider and to weigh
A law where gas-fueled cars would soon be banned.

The cancellation came because a storm
Left near 400,000 in the dark.
With no electric power the Green reform
Was shifted down from “Drive” and put in “Park.”

The matter highlighted the obvious;
When power’s out, EVs can’t be charged up.
Police and Fire and EMTs would thus
Be useless as a crumpled dixie cup.

And solar panels, windfarms, too, would be
Unable to produce electric power.
So who’d-a thought? “Good Grief” and “Golly Gee!”
The Green Reform’s gone straight from “sweet” to “sour.”

The whole thing would be laughable, of course,
Except that Green promoters would prefer
That everyone both came and went by horse,
Though methane gas would then, of course, occur.

No heat! No light! No cars! That’s what we’ll get
When the Green Zero storms kick up a squall.
Although such foolishness is not here, yet,
In Maine, they’ve seen the writing on the wall.

.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin: from the Old Testament, meaning that a place is inevitably doomed; source of the phrase “the writing on the wall.”

.

.

James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and three collections of poetry including Mostly Sonnets, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, Dwell Time, Light, Deronda Review, The Road Not Taken, Fevers of the Mind, Sparks of Calliope, Dancing Poetry, WestWard Quarterly, Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse. He was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition.

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25 Responses

  1. Mike Bryant

    Wow! The poem is absolutely spot on! It is hard to believe that so many are all in on Net Zero. I just read an article about the way Natural Gas has been discovered all over the world.

    The following countries are looking to be LNG exporters by the end of the decade: Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria, Mauritania, Congo, and Equatorial Guinea.

    Also…

    Here is a list of countries that have, in the past few years, either built or are planning to build, LNG import terminals… Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, and Puerto Rico, and Germany.

    It begs the question, why are all these countries investing in fossil fuels if we are all going Net Zero? Perhaps the people in the know have always known that Climate Change is an enormous hoax. Anyone who still believes in it is probably expecting Santa Claus too.
    This is the century of Natural Gas.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/05/30/column-this-is-the-century-of-natural-gas/

    Reply
  2. Cynthia Erlandson

    You are really on a streak of brilliance lately, James! This is so good! First of all, your title taken from the book of Daniel is just perfect. The green reform shifting from Drive to Park, and the line about horses producing methane gas, were among the funniest (though, as you say, these things WOULD be laughable, but… the writing is on the wall.)

    Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    James, this is both fun to read and sharply observant. To quote Bart Simpson: “The ironing is delicious.”

    Reply
  4. Roy Eugene Peterson

    This marvelous poem pounds the point home about the unravelling realities of the greenies and the continued assault on logic and common sense by the ignorant left! In short I applaud you for bring this to our attention!

    Reply
  5. Phil S. Rogers

    Right on Target! The lack of common sense in this country now is beyond incredible.

    Reply
  6. Norma Pain

    Excellent poem James. I will ride my bicycle before I will ever buy an electric vehicle. These people in power are out of their minds. Justin Trudeau is now going after cow burps!!!!

    Reply
  7. Cheryl Corey

    “With no electric power the Green reform Was shifted down from “Drive” and put in “Park.” is a very clever line. If the vehicle in the featured photo was electric, wouldn’t the battery be ruined?

    Reply
  8. Joshua C. Frank

    Love it! You’ve managed to expose the stupidity of such a plan in enjoyable verse. I do like when the left’s idiotic plans blow up in their faces…

    Reply
  10. Joseph S. Salemi

    I’m working on a poem titled “Celebrating My Carbon Footprint,” wherein I’ll sing the joys of my oil-burning heater, the convenience of my natural gas stove, my frequent outdoor barbecues with burning wood, my lavish hiring of internal-combustion automobiles to travel places, and my massive burning of fallen leaves and dried-up vegetation in the Fall. I urge everyone to follow my example, just to stick it to our enemies.

    Reply
    • Mike Bryant

      Perhaps that should be a Poetry Challenge, Joseph. Every Earth Day I barbecue a beef brisket in my wood pellet grill, turn up my stereo and leave all my lights shining for the full 24-hours.
      Is it just a coincidence that Earth Day was placed on Lenin’s birthday? I think not.
      When the steam engine was invented it was the first time that a vehicle could carry enough fuel to move itself, tons and tons of freight AND even more fuel across long distances. They only had to add water… then the internal combustion engine (ICE) truly freed man from poverty.
      It is laughable when the STOP OIL protesters stop traffic because they themselves arrived at the scene of their crime thanks to oil. Their clothes are made from oil, their water has been purified by oil and the water bottles are made of plastics from oil. Even their cell phones that allowed the coordination of their illegal activities would not exist in a fossil fuel free world.
      Really, Joseph how can anyone be so clueless?

      Reply
      • Adam Wasem

        Possibly the most absurd aspect of their anti-carbon crusade is the simple fact, which any 3rd grade science student knows, that CO2 is PLANT FOOD, and the more there is in the atmosphere, the larger and faster plants grow, and in more areas where they couldn’t grow before. Even NASA, woke as they are now, has pictures from space showing undeniable proof of the progressive “greening” of the earth since the 1970s. In their wokeness they of course can’t draw any conclusions from this evidence, but anyone with any sense knows it’s due to higher levels of CO2. The more fossil fuels we burn, the faster and bigger crops grow, and the more they spread. Burn enough fossil fuel, and we could even see deserts like the Sahara and the Sonora green over in our lifetime. And these idiots want to get rid of all that. It’s the ignorance of actual, basic science that is so infuriating.

      • Mike Bryant

        Yes… all true. The greening of the earth really is settled science. As for the rise of CO2, look at the graph from NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory:

        https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

        Shouldn’t there be a dip in 2020 during the lockdown? We learned that CO2 was plant food in grade school… today teachers are teaching warming and pronouns…

  11. Adam Wasem

    What better way to savor the sweet, sweet irony than with a poem? Truly delicious, James.

    Reply
  12. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    A wonderful wake-up-call of a poem, James, and I thank you wholeheartedly for writing it. Anyone reading the closing paragraph without a sense of outrage for the cruelty of Net Zero policies inflicted on the poorest in the world has no brain and (even worse) no heart… and the pushers of these policies consider themselves virtuous.

    Reply
  13. Margaret Coats

    James, very well done addition of yours to already apparent writing on the wall.

    Reply
  14. Daniel Kemper

    An enjoyable bit of light verse that… actually isn’t all that light. Sigh, right off the cliff we go. There was a time when I thought, o.k. global warming etc. is the “noble lie” — we did, in my opinion need a lot of force and focus to clean up after ourselves so that things like Lake Eerie catching on fire didn’t keep happening. Ay go! How naive I was.

    This reminded me somehow of “post-modernist architecture.” In it, stuff is exposed to the outside, stairwells lead nowhere, some expected places for doors have no doors and windows show up in random places — to reflect in the architecture that life makes no sense so why would architecture. I heard a wise apologist comment succinctly… “Did they do the same with the foundation?”

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      As the late great Malvina Reynolds put it, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone . . .”

      Reply
  15. C.B. Anderson

    Great stuff, James. I was tickled by this shot in the ribs to all those arrogant know-nothing know-it-alls, which was all the more effective owing to the formal precision with which it was delivered.

    Another thought: The world is going to need a warmer climate and a bit more atmospheric CO2 if there is to be any hope of growing enough food to feed seven billion people. Have any of our “wise leaders” given any thought to that? They are probably more worried about their pensions, and they should be.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Kip. our globalist elite and Deep-State rulers have given it a lot of thought. And what they have concluded (privately, of course) is that there must be a massive die-out of population, world-wide, to make the planet livable from their point of view. That’s what the new mandatory “vaccines” were all about, that’s what eating bugs is all about, that’s what the celebration of homosexuality is all about, that’s what the aggressive promotion of abortion is all about. Preventing the greening of the earth is just another tactic in their game plan.

      Reply

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