Fabric - A Haiku

In our small Living With Integrity group we began a discussion on the dynamics of cheap textile sales. To some of us it was startling to hear that the availability of cheap clothing (one member had found a site which offers more than 1700 women’ s tops) has led to buyers purchasing several and discarding some without even a single wearing. It was suggested I might write a Haiku to draw attention to this issue. Here it is

In case you would like just the wording, it is


If I won’t be worn
Let me stay on the shelf and 
not landfill adorn.

Might make a good discussion starter in any similar group.

A Lament of Water

A few years ago at St Leonard's church Assisi, I met an international water consultant. we had a fascinating conversation about the sheer waste of water in supply systems across the world - a situation that the Italian-based engineer advises on with a view to finding remedies. The volume of wasted water he described points to unbelievable levels of negligence, which I have tried to reflect in the following poem, which my engineer friend has checked for accuracy - and for that, I am most grateful. There are also major international questions as to who ‘owns’ water - but that’s another major topic for another time!

A Lament of Water
You seek me on far distant planets,
knowing I signal life.
Yet you who need me abuse me,
In hideous measure
Through ill-tended pipes.

At least one third of me, treated,
ensuring I'm drinkably pure,
is lost as I pass, through the mains, to a tap;
‘tis profligate! That's to be sure.

So whilst others struggle collecting
me, trekking to worrying source,
you have no concern for what you can't see,
that from stricken  pipeworks
I constantly burst.

Paradise Island Dreams

‘Moonglow’ CGI by the author

Darkness stretches to the horizon,

speckled grey reflects a struggling moon;

close to my invisible feet

a gravelly surge tells me soon

the waves will undermine

the tiny promontory where I stand;

steady for now but in only minutes

my dreamer’s knoll will be engulfed 

in the unpredictably shifting sand.

I will stay, I will stay for a while

transfixed by the infinite

rhythm of the waves.

Tonight the ocean’s gentle swell

masks the latent violence

that makes it the realm of innumerable graves.

Transient glints from the downcast sky

cause me to reflect;

there, beyond my constrained eye

and my pedestrian imagining

are deep trenches, 

mighty sub-surface mountains,

scintillating reefs;

mortuaries - millions of shells, no longer in use:

slithering predators, giving no relief 

to myriads of fish of dizzily entrancing hues.

And in the deeper, deeper waters

sinister gyres

where we, ultimate predators,

ultimate polluters 

cast plastic, glass and toxic refuse

unthinkingly

from boats, shorelines, rivers and streams

adding to the natural death toll:

so rapidly, all too rapidly

we poison everyone’s
paradise island dreams.

Extending the Life of the Planet: Yes We Can!

Helped by science, we’ve reduced the dangerous ozone hole;
Countries are, with foresight, turning down their coal;

there are otters, fish and wildfowl in rivers once deemed dead;

we’re more concerned when species’ lives hang dangling on a thread.

So with some careful measures and a will to rearrange,

we can stop the planet heading for a dangerous climate change;

and each of us can contribute by thinking day-by-day

of switching off, recycling waste and throwing less away.

Below, rainbow cards of this poem  to print out for circulation at appropriate events. May I encourage you to distribute them as widely as you can. They focus on achievement andthe positive and may, therefore, have an impact that will be greater than some more forceful messages!

Truth to Power: A Villanelle.

Recently: August 20th - watched new #AlGore film: concerns re-awakened, making me want to capture them in a Villanelle to use the repetitive emphases of that form of poem. August 25th More difficult than expected but poem completed. Then August 26th see news of extreme monsoon rain in Bangladesh India and Nepal; storm Harvey and the catastrophe of Texas and now Louisiana. Our hearts go out to the huge number of people afflicted - and with the shocking thought that all of us in the West have, in very high probability, contributed to the awfulness.

Expect more weather of wildest extremes.

Until we replace every fossil fuel

We’ll see murderous floods supplant gentle streams.

The stuff of nightmares, not rosy dreams.

Winds and storms frequently, massive and cruel;

Expect more weather of wildest extremes;

Ugly smogs blanket dense urban scenes,

CO₂’s impact on planet, lethal,

As more murderous floods supplant gentle streams.

Polar ice dies; its melting rates obscene

Confirm climatology is truthful. 

Expect more weather of wildest extremes;

Wildfires to make tired firefighters blaspheme,

Long droughts render farms unsustainable,           

Elsewhere murderous floods supplant gentle streams.

Campaign for change: don’t look on, resentful,

Mount challenges to power proving neglectful.

Expect more weather of wildest extremes,
As those murderous floods supplant gentle streams.

Good Stewardship: A Community Resource Possibility on Your Local Church Roof!

For some time this possibility for older churches seemed to have the insuperable problem that solar panels would never be allowed on a Grade I or II (English) listed building. No longer! There are panels on Grade I listed churches and even on a Cathedral. Hence the poem/shallenge below

Good Stewardship?

Every day,

powerful rays of the sun

rain down 

on a multitude,

of passive,             

south-facing

church roofs.

Could those barren acres

be converted into

fruitful energy providers? 
Thus, of good stewardship, 
rendering proof.

CLIMERICK: Payback! An Executive’s Nightmare (A Limerick)

Still on the topic of discarded plastic

Read this limerick as a sequel to Bottles, Bags and Microplastics and Enemy Fleet in Fulham Reach

More information on this theme at
A Plastic Planet
Surfers Against Sewage
Journey To The Plastic Ocean

Plea of an Unborn Child

Image found on 'Babycenter blog'. (13 weeks)

Dearly beloved Mother, you are, just now, 

the only person to whom I can talk.

You are my sustenance, my comfort,

my very life; and it will be much the same

up to and beyond that special day when I can walk.

Today I want to ask you

that you will do all you can to ensure

the world into which I will be born

will sustain me and your grandchildren,

and not be so hideously transformed

that we will find it impossible to live without fear

of disasters, even wars, brought about

by too much or too little water, violent winds,

extremes of cold and heat:

and a probability of having to weep all-too-frequent tears.

Please,please, listen to discerning,

careful, forward-thinking scientists

and whenever possible, 

tell those who pursue the relentless exploitation of fossil fuels -

and everything that follows in its wake -

that you need them to draw it to a rapid halt, for my sake

and for every single child of my generation.

Please go on marches,

write indignant letters,

organise petitions,

argue with vehement determination,

that I and all of us-in-waiting

may not have to mourn the earth,

but live as you would no doubt have us live,

to welcome our children

in the fullness of time,

with joyous celebration. 

More information on this theme at
NASA: Climate Change and Global Warming

Bottles, Bags and Micro-plastics

Image from journey to the plastic ocean

Tidal waves of jettisoned plastic

Overwhelm glorious golden sand.

Thoughtlessly discarded bottles

and single-trip bags

spawn a shameful, coastal wasteland.

Sinister flows of toxic outfall

ooze from here, to the ocean’s despair.

Fragments of micro-plastics 

swirl endlessly among fish,

who feed on this cynical harvest

entirely unaware.

 

In another yield from the deep,

bright crystals of table-salt

are likewise pervaded

which we then ingest. 

So might wisdom commend,  

a STOP PLASTICS approach?

Trevor Thorn © 2017

Written after reading Lucy Siegle’s Ethical Living Column ‘The Eco Guide to Microplastics', Observer 6th August 2017.

More information on this theme at
A Plastic Planet
Surfers Against Sewage
Journey To The Plastic Ocean

White Sails

Image from ‘The Earth Project’ site

White Sails 

My heart leaps with joy

to see great white sails

welcoming their friend,

a strong and steady breeze.

These are today’s

worthy successors

to the multitude of windmills

we gradually discarded

in favour of the efficiency

of burn-away fossil fuels.

Jettisoning them, 

we sent grain further,

consumed yet more fuel ,

and wrapped regimented loaves

in lethal plastic.

So welcome to these gentle giants

with their swirling symmetry,

as they gracefully draw afresh

from the ever-present air

its generous bounty

of cleanly harvested energy.

© Trevor Thorn

Enemy Fleet in Fulham Reach

Since the abandonment of the wooden piers,

evocative of a past, stretching back

to when the most primitive boats were known,

this tidal thoroughfare grew sick

from the outpourings

of numberless, noxious, industrial flows.

Today, it is restored!

Dace, roach and perch

again find nourishment

from the cleaner stream,

as do a score of avian breeds.

It is a triumph to have achieved

a river so 'green'.

Yet, as the tide recedes

exposing messy, muddy banks,

swans, geese and ducks

battle their way between

a convoy of enemy craft, most dire!

Carelessly discarded cola bottles

free of their sugar-laden cargo,

surge on their inexorable way

towards a gigantic, malevolent gyre.

© Trevor Thorn 2017

More information on this theme at
A Plastic Planet
Surfers Against Sewage

Journey To The Plastic Ocean