Elephant in the Room

Elephant in the Room

Poem #1

these days the smiles are scripted

to induce the flow of joy

in hopes

they amplify an initial step

to overcome the inertia

of years of climate induced apathy

i still remember the days

when i did not have to remind myself

to smile or breathe deep

It is something else

to know what hope feels like

what value there is in dreaming without boundaries

those days have come and gone

as today we live

to exist

tomorrow

Poem #2

the daily onslaught

of catastrophic news

speaks only

of the impending doom

of climate mathematics

we have zero time to waste

on vanity

greed

entrepreneurial capitalists

soul consumers

whose singular focus

on vanity dreams

destroys the resources

of a living Earth

Poem #9

the angst of the elephant

carried in silence

grows into rage, bigotry, and greed

for the unaware humans

who deny

the obvious consequences

of humanity’s actions

we destroy the planet

as the bell tolls in modern times

when we have the skills

to avoid catastrophe

yet willfully

ignore it

for the convenience

of ignorance

because to do otherwise

means

accepting the consequences

of our crimes

against

earthlings

About the Author

Lucas Klesch

I am a climate scientist and artist working on my fifth book of poetry entitled, Elephant in the Room. It is a collection of poems exploring the angst of the impending climate catastrophe we are currently facing that is coming to fruition by traveling the old west and using it as the parable landscape for man’s impact on earth. Climate Change and the angst it entails is currently the Elephant in the Room of every conversation, interaction, and thought humans are having. We are all going through the grief associated with being responsible for the destruction of earth. Regardless of consciousness of where you are on the scale of grief, it is the thing we are all wrestling with. My goal is to illuminate how to process the emotions, and deal with the elephant, so we may get to the transition period sooner than later, and begin a new way of living. This after all is what the angst is rooted in, our inability to even acknowledge our climate reality. To say it out loud means we admit our crimes against humanity, and that admission means we must accept radical fundamental changes to society. This book of poems will also be used as the spoken word narration for a film on climate change I am working on entitled Visual Intersections which will use my photographs from travelling the old west as a parable of climate change.