The Meaning of 2022

2019. The Karoo Semi-Desert. Photo by Thomas Scarborough.

by Chengde Chen *

 

When the face mask is off

A Christmas smile appears 

But you know it is a forced one

With much fearfulness underneath 

The plague persists with craziness 

Bones piling up mountain high

Global warming knocks on the door

Proving it has been too late to stop

The conflict between the superpowers 

Increasingly lead to a world war

Which probably let nuclear power

Decide our joys and sorrows

Three kinds of doom come together

As if to make sure there is no escape

But it is this that gives 2022 meaning –

To test human resilience to the full!

* Chengde Chen: author of Five Themes of Today; The Thought-read Revolution, etc. chengde.chen@hotmail.com

Our Destined Date

Posted by Jeremy Dyer *

Red Sky at Night II by Kimberly Conrad

The rivers run, the leaves do fall
The earth still turns its trick
The oceans and the prairies roar
But we are very sick.

Blasted earth, the toxins run
The blood is poisoned well
We cannot survive the fun
Of our consumer hell.

Garbage, plastic, rusted bike
It all runs to the sea
Killing man and beast alike
That poison's killing me.

When will we wake, alas too late
It's past the point of fixing
There is a destined, horror date
That no-one will be missing.

I have the hope that birds will sing
Kind winds will blow again
Stopping our destructioning
Healing up our pain.

But will we wake and heal the earth
Get rid of all the 'leaders'?
Reduce the greed, respect the hearth
Deal with all the breeders?

The earth will die, I think it's done
We're in the final hour
What's over when the song is sung
Is the funeral bower.

The rivers run, black as hell
They're dying as we speak
The urgent answers that we seek
Won't be on tv this week.

* Jeremy Dyer is an acclaimed Cape Town artist.