A Tour Down Memory Lane
Budapest, Hungary
2020, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Right down this lane, here are the dinosaurs.
Rowdy neighbourhood, all you can hear are roars.
It rarely rains there though, only yearly one large rock.
Here is the end of the prehistoric block.
Move along one, and here are the famous cave houses.
Inside them live men with many spouses.
See there, that faint light flicker?
That’s fire bound to be a kicker.
Come on, we don’t have all the time to take!
This right here my friend, was the very first rake.
Comes from Uruk, near Babylon.
Days of wild hunting be gone!
Here live the Romans and Greeks,
Some of them are right geeks.
Although, without people like Cicero and Aristotle,
All of our knowledge today, would turn and topple.
See that round old man, surrounded by riches?
That’s Henry the Eighth, who thinks all of his wives are witches.
Right here, that’s Elisabeth the First.
For blood and baths, she still has much thirst.
From now on we must hurry.
Please walk fast, so that all you see is blurry.
The more they ruin Earth, the more they let us down,
Everyone who lives here is ashamed of this part of town.
Please keep your head held low,
And quickly duck if you see a large glow.
There’s the end of the second lane, you needn’t worry,
But please, keep close, we must scurry.
Do not be deceived by the beautiful buildings and all-knowing
machines, All the wild forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, all the greens,
Are here beaten to death, with the cold weapon of a human’s greed.
For the hills of their unused paper, the rivers of plastic in their ocean, that’s not what they need!
They need the wild animals, they need a thriving forest,
But until they consume the whole of earth, they do not rest.
For in this lane, to buy a shirt,
You take away a fish’s water and give it dirt.
They are more focused on a single shade of lipstick,
Than what their home will look like in 20 years, when they’ll feel extremely homesick.
They don’t think of the future, they just think: “I need more money…now!”
They’ll revive their whole planet “in a minute.” But how?
You want to go back? I understand why.
They also would gladly kiss their toxic homes goodbye.
You would like to live in please insert here?
I walk you back, and with that I disappear.
Reflection
I wrote this protest poem about and against the gruesome pollution of Earth. Over the centuries, humankind has treated our planet as if it were a warehouse with unlimited resources and all our ill-judged actions could be reversed immediately by simply spending extra money to correct past mistakes. In the last few years, many experts have urged us to make more considerate and conscious choices to help save our planet. While writing my poem, I felt quite remorseful for not having made some of the aforementioned decisions and for what has become of our world. The message to my readers is quite straightforward: understand the full potential of your actions. While realising how much they help, we shall make trivial changes and little by little, we can provide a better world for future generations. While conducting research, I understood that we ought to act even quicker than I had thought. What gives me hope, though, is that people are slowly becoming more aware of the grim situation that they have gotten themselves in, and hence, we will jointly strive for a better future. To create said future, on my tiny part, I have started using recyclable bags, drink from water bottles instead of buying disposable ones, and started reutilising plastic and other non-degradable products for secondary purposes. All the treasures of the world cannot revive our rapidly deteriorating planet unless we join forces. Now.