Planet for Sale
Havertown, PA
2022, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Planet for sale, planet for sale
Humans looking to move.
A new planet with new amenities
Clean air! Working air conditioning!
No more flooded basements, no more leaky taps
No more drip, drip, drip…
This planet is shiny and new
No more slumming it
Time to live the high life
This house is untouched, this house is unsoiled
Look at that yard!
Look at all that green
A place for the kids to play, and the dog to run
The swing set will go over there,
The barbeque in that corner
Maybe we’ll tear up the ground up and put in a pool
Put up our white picket fence and make it perfect
You know, we can afford to let our guard down
Look around us, we’ve earned it
A couple trees can come down,
How can we live without our factories?
A few won’t hurt anyone.
This is our way of life, no one can take that from us
Bring down that forest,
Put the trash in the oceans
Don’t worry, we won’t be able to see it
I liked the old house better
We didn’t have to clean that one
We didn’t have to care
This is a new start
This will be better
We won’t make the same mistakes twice
We can change
It won’t be like last time
Bulldoze the jungle
Destroy the coral reefs
Smother the prairies with parking lots
Oh no! We tore down our white picket fence.
Reflection
I was inspired by several late night talk show hosts who use humor to convey the seriousness of climate change. Climate change is somewhat ironic in itself, because we are both the sole cause and the only advocate of this crisis. For this reason, I thought a satirical poem would best describe the predicament we are currently facing. After doing research on climate change, it is clear that individuals can do what they can to help slow the effects, but the only people with the power to truly change the course of the climate are corporations and governments leaders because they are the ones directly responsible. Without massive action, climate change will continue, and we will be forced to consider alternatives such as “moving planets.”