Everything is packed up ready to leave
for the last time on a dark and dismal
February day as the spring tide roars
on the other side of the dunes waiting
to devour the coast the fields the villages
drown the towns and rampage in the cities
and you say “Let’s go to the pub it’s empty
we can grab a few beers for the journey”
sticking your hands in your deep jacket pockets
and we just walk out of the cottage door
with tears in our eyes not knowing where
the wind might take us – as if we cared
now the world is coming to a watery end
and there’s no future around the river bend.
Kim M. Russell, 13th February 2020
My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: The Death Sentence, also linked to Poets and Storytellers United Writers’ Pantry
Amaya is keeping the bar this week and she tells us that, having read Michael Simms’ blog Vox Populi – A Public Sphere for Poetry, Politics, and Nature for four years now, she was recently intrigued by a poetry challenge the poet/curator gave himself. Amaya says that this poetry challenge is brilliant for penetrating the psyche of the post-modern ‘people’s voice’ – it’s tricky but exciting!
Rule 1: the poem must tell a story in one sentence.
Rule 2: the poem must explore the theme of ‘the end of civilization as we know it.’
Rule 3: the story must tell of an odd or embarrassing incident, either heard about, witnessed, or autobiographical.
Rule 4: it must be improvised.
We may write up to three story-sentence-poems that answer the prompt.
Oh Kim- I love the reading of your poem- it’s fantastic.
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This poem is just stellar (and sad) the disasters awaiting when we have to leave our homes before we are swallowed by the sea… sometimes I wonder if I wouldn’t fill my pocket with stones and walk into the waves instead
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Thank you, Bjorn. Twenty eight years ago, we got a taste of it when, in the early hours of a Sunday morning, we were woken by sirens and knocking at the door of our little cottage by the sea. The spring tides threatened to breach the defences and we had to evacuate. Luckily, the only casualty was a police car that was swept down the lifeboat ramp, but it reminded older locals of the floods of the 1950s, when a whole village disappeared under the waves, and is linked to the current problems we have with coastal erosion and our uncertain future.
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I like the last two lines with the “end” and “bend” rhymes.
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Thanks Frank!
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Grief is the feeling that comes while reading and your voice gives the poem depth.
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Thank you, Jade. The loss of our coastline is more than worrying. Many people have lost homes and livelihoods, empty properties hang off the edges of cliffs, and the threat of the sea is ever present.
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Coastlines are eroding everywhere, from New Orleans to Miami to New York. Ice caps are melting like blocks of ice in the Sahara. Your piece was well written, with a terrific sense of place and time. When I lived in LA we had to run from wild fires and flash floods.
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Thankyou so much, Glenn. Moving from London and living in Norfolk has opened my eyes to so much.
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has a ring of truth in it … our pubs would be full!
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It’s based on things that happened 28 years ago, with some extra bits.
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I thought it was real!
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Beautifully composed. (The great jazz sax player Jimmy Lyons said improvising was composing and vice versa.) I suppose the end of the world would always be a watery end as tears would blur the last of it we’d see.
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Thank you, Amaya. There’s a YA novel by Marcus Sedgwick called Floodland, which is set in an England covered by water, where Norwich is an island, It might happen.
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kaykuala
A lot of gamble but made out invariably to be the Hobson’s choice!
Hank
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I imagine you both going into the abandoned pub and helping yourselves behind the bar, getting locked just one last time 🙂
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😊
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I loved this even more after I listened to you read it aloud.
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Thank you, Sara!
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Well done Kim. Dunno how it will ever be averted
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Somebody has made a predicted map of East Anglia that shows sea encroachment – all three villages we have lived in over the last 28 years will be swallowed up!
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I am sorry, that is so terrifying
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We have reason to be bleak. Great words.
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We have reason to be bleak. Great words.
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Thank you, Anthony.
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Here was I thinking Australia was in such danger from climate changeand forest fires with the melting South Pole threatening a rising sea level and back in England you are in trouble too. Sounds as though we have been a bit careless everywhere!
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All too believable, with Storm Dennis threatening the UK just now!
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I’m not keen on Storm Dennis! Staying inside today.
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Beautifully composed Kim – so well done.
Anna :o]
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Thank you, Anna! 😊
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You have made me so emotional with your words, Kim! I too loved the reading of your poem and felt as though I was sitting right next to you. 💝
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Thank you very much, Sanaa!😍
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Well if the world is ending, might as well grab a few beers as we exit… sad, funny, ironic, dystopian!
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Thank you, Rajani!
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Meeting the Death Sentence challenge with perfection! I admit I side-stepped it, finding I don’t seem to do dystopia well. I admire your versatility, as this is a quantum leap from your norm and you’ve done it so well.
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Thank you so much, Bev!
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Having flashbacks to hurricane prep. Those last beers…just heartbreaking.
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Thanks Wyndolynne.
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This is just a great write Kim–but so sad–we live in dark times
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Thank you. It is very sad, but it is heartening to see that people are adapting.
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How beautiful this is from the urgency of flooding to the casual idea of having a beer in the midst of chaos, which has me thinking of how different people handle such things or just how sometimes we give up in the face of doom. The audio version adds so much to the interpretation, really emphasizing the contrasts.I love this, Kim!
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Thank you so much, Mish.
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Wow this so sad, that nature can lend people so helpness
Much💝love
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Thanks Gillena! 🙂
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Beautifully done, Kim. Stay out of the storm!
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Thank you, Viv! Thankfully, it’s over and we might get back to normality.
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Some of my neighbors and I threw sandbags along the Mississippi River in 1993 flood. When more people arrived nearly 6 hours later, we got our first break. We realized that only one person outside of us knew we were there and we realized what would have happened if the levee broke. After we shared a few pitchers at our local bar, I finally relaxed.
I think I understand why someone would want to have a pint at the pub during the chaos.
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We no longer live by the sea, but are on the Norfolk Broads, a connected group of lakes and rivers on the east coast of England, where there is still flood risk. We have a pile of sandbags just in case. As Bill Bryson said, Britain is a small island.
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Oh, everywhere we are losing coastlines to erosion. It is scary. Love hearing you read your poem.
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Thank you, Susie!
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Surely there’s hope! Surely we humans will come to our senses before the rising tides swallow us up!
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I think Nature is getting her own back.
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