Friday, August 30, 2013

An NTE State of Mind

It won’t matter, whatever you do,
But accepting that doom’s really true—
And there’s nowhere to flee
From the NTE—
Will change your whole point of view. 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

If

If you can keep on the run,
And if you are not undone
By fallout and heat,
And you don’t need to eat,
You'll be a man my son!

Saturday, August 24, 2013

The Rime of the Doomer Mariner

STAGE 1
IT is a Mariner of doom
Who upon the Guest does presume;
Wherefore stoppest thou me?
In the hall—look and see—
They’re marrying the Bride and the Groom!

The Guest heard the loud bassoon,
But was stuck with this grey-beard loon
Whose glittering eye
Made the Guest comply
And listen, like some dumb maroon.

The sweet life was coming along,
Like a heavenly angel’s song,
Or the sound of a flute;
But it all became moot
When I couldn’t deny what was wrong.

STAGE 2
An example of anger? I’ll try:
Well, this one time, the shit went awry,
And two hundred men,
Time and again,
Kept cursing me with their dead eye.

STAGE 3
Mariner, I fear thy eye,
But I’ll bargain to think death’s a lie;
Be calm, Wedding-Guest:
This is not just a test,
As you’ll see for yourself by and by.

STAGE 4
A weary time! How glazed each eye—
Perhaps even wanting to die;
Turning to drink,
Or consulting a shrink,
Or oftentimes wanting to cry.

STAGE 5
The moment that I could agree
That it’s over, then I could see
From a new point of view,
And the place where I grew
Hardly looked like mine own countree.

There’s this funny thing I go through:
I must tell some poor sucker doom’s true;
When his face I see,
I know who it will be,
And this time the sucker was you.

Having learned that the shit’s hit the fan,
The Guest had to change his life’s plan;
And he—stunned and forlorn—
Rose the morrow morn
A sadder and wiser man.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

I’m Just a Guy in the Band

When the ship hit the ice far from land,
It was not under my command;
I play, as you see,
“Nearer, My God, to Thee”:
I’m just a guy in the band.

Your life didn’t go as you planned?
There’s things you still don’t understand?
I keep up esprit
When I play; don’t tell me—
I’m just a guy in the band.

No lifeboat, or helpful deckhand?
How should you make your last stand?
This is NTE,
So please don’t ask me:
I’m just a guy in the band.

H/T: The Moody Blues

Sunday, August 18, 2013

We’re Done

 “Stick a fork in us. We’re done....”
     — Guy McPherson

The end of our days has begun,
Search for escape, you’ll find none;
We know what’s ahead:
In the short run, we’re dead—
Stick a fork in us. We’re done. 

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Freaking

Peak Oil, Macondo...let’s list ‘em,
I no longer try to resist ‘em;
There’s nothing to do:
Once you go through a few,
You get it out of your system.

It’s not paranoid, nuts, or absurd,
That whenever the end has occurred,
You should not be surprised
If it’s not televised:
They don’t want to spook the herd.

Quiet’s good, until doom attacks:
There’ll be noise enough once this thing cracks;
It will hit when it hits—
Don’t be having shits,
Just do what you can to relax. 

Monday, August 12, 2013

The Beach Boys

Help Me, Rhonda

Seeking peace before I was dead,
I looked, but I found doom instead;
I said WTF?
I’d like better luck:
Help get doom out of my head.
==

Bad Vibrations

I’m picking up bad vibrations
Connected with doom’s excitations;
I don’t know where,
But it sends me there,
Among other mental locations.
==

In My Gloom

There’s a place where I’m sharing my gloom:
It’s a blog, like an online room;
I compare with my peers
All my worries and fears
And unwelcome secrets of doom.
==

It Gets Around

Radiation’s coming inbound
Till there’s nowhere it cannot be found;
It’s sure to get there
Via water or air:
That Fuku shit sure gets around.
==

Fun, Fun, Fun

Like sheep, we have all gone astray,
Thinking life’s purpose is play;
But, son of a gun,
We’ll have fun, fun, fun,
Till our habitat all goes away.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

From "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"

LXXI
The Finger writes, and, having writ,
Allows you to read your obit;
Doom gives you the finger,
And says you won’t linger
Much longer in all of this shit.

LXXII
That Bowl which we call the Sky
Is a covering lid they apply,
Whereunder we crawl
To the petri dish wall,
Then run out of food and die.

LXXIII
The Big Bang determined the text
Which we read, yet still get perplexed:
The way it exploded,
Right then encoded
Whatever you’re going to do next. 

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Methane Gun

Playing Russian roulette in the gloom,
The gun at our head’s armed with doom:
The sound goes “click...click,”
Like a clock: “tick...tick...tick,”
And one of these days—“BOOM!”

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Our Only Choice

Mike Sosebee says (at NBL, about his new movie "Somewhere in New Mexico Before the End of Time"): “You see I think the message of the film is quite hopeful. I’m hoping that human societies will realize that our species is not long for the planet and that maybe we’d be classy enough to turn out the lights on the way out.”

“It's about the only choice we do have now.”
   — “Fail-Safe”   

Extinction is now beyond doubt,
So what’s to be puzzled about?
Our only choice left
Is painful or deft—
The way that we choose to go out. 

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Near Term Extinction

Once we have settled our doubt,
NTE is what we’re all about;
So when others forget,
We don’t get upset,
We simply keep pointing it out.