Search form

Writing Challenges: Inspiration and ideas to spark your creativity every day

Previous Post
Next Post

CJP-Fire

“If you are in denial about climate change, come to California,” says that state's governor, Gavin Newsom. It's the worst year of fires on record. California, Oregon, Washington are on fire. Read and write about it. To find out more, read the New York Times story on climate reckoning. [Photo: Lake Oroville, Calif., Sept. 10, 2020, Max Whittaker for The New York Times]

Respond

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Responses to this Challenge

Sep 27
poetry challenge: CJP-Fire

There’s a house on fire

There’s a house on fire,
But we won’t call 911.
We’ll let it burn away,
“Soon enough, it will be done!”

Our neighbors are in danger,
But they can fend for themselves.
“Everything is perfectly fine!”
So the White House yells. 

They say it’s not a big deal,
“It’s on the other coast.”
But red light streams through my window,
And that is not a boast.

Fifty years under study,
And now this red-ish tint.
We’ve ignored it for so long,
Why can’t we take a hint?

It’s safe to finally state:
We’re in the midst of a blight.
And I think it’s time that we admit,
That Greta was always right.
Read More
Posted: 09.27.20
Sep 12
poetry challenge: CJP-Fire

Moths aflame

"California is on fire."
We are moths aflame.

Gold coins spill from our tongues
soaking all the sunshine until skies are gray.

A politician's dead eyes watch
orange skies in San Francisco, unfeeling.

The fires stole the mountains, the smoke the horizon
but you, fish eyes, you stole the security of my home.

We are Esaus, who will go down as fools
for selling a birthright for diamonds and doubloons,

villains the moment we renounced nature
to become Midas instead.

My home is a prison that reeks of smoke,
the AC on while we freeze underwater.

How long will we wait, will you wait,
until the ash taints your golden tongue?

I beg you, I warn you
that California is just the tip of a matchstick.

Yes, suffering brings a nation together
but if you cared, don't let us die so ...

there are babies just being born ...
Read More
Posted: 09.12.20
Sep 12
poetry challenge: CJP-Fire
Yellow Sweater's picture

Faith into Smoke

Wandering through the smoke, 
I picked up a copy of Nietzsche .
I don't know why I did it. 

Perhaps I thought I would look cool. 
The little book dangling carelessly from my hand; 
I would saunter on, omnipotent. 

I wanted to read:
"God is dead,” 
to quote it with conviction. 

Walking through the itchy grim,
crowned with bed head and delirium,   
I needed faith.  

After some Nietzsche, 
smirking into the haze, 
I would be a pious unbeliever. 

That night I felt sick. 
Maybe it was the Nietzsche, 
but it was probably just the smoke.  


 
 
Read More
Posted: 09.12.20
Sep 11
rant challenge: CJP-Fire

WILD F**KING FIRE

Did you know that there's such a thing as a controlled burn? Yep. Here's what controlled burning is: "Controlled burning is any fire intentionally ignited to meet specific land management objectives, such as to... restore ecosystem health" (USDA). And do you know what tends to happen? The earth naturally needs to burn sometimes. And humans often stop that burning if it occurs near them! So then what do you have? A bunch of super-dry-about-to-burn grass. This happens over and over again and you end up with a large amount of land that is dry and burnable, so when lightning strikes or somebody throws a smoking cigarette out of their car window and into a field, that dry field can catch fire. Of course, there are other things to consider that I've left out like climate change and the way humans are affecting ecosystems everywhere and the complete crap thats going on, but honestly I'm tired of watching things burn. So I will let it be.
Read More
Posted: 09.11.20