Poetry Superhighway April 2023 Poems

Green Trees Don't Make It

Trees Don’t Make It PSH

Everyday
I look out and see
The ugly green trees
Standing guard
in front of my house

And I think to myself
Who owns the trees?
And what do they think of us?

Are we their friends?
Are we their enemies?
What do the trees think?
Or do they silently watch us,
Spies to the celestial emperor?

I have pondered this question
Many a morning
Who is the owner of these trees?
And why do they silently watch us?

I wonder if the trees don't hate us
And why they don't protest
Every day as we drive back and forth
Emitting poison gases
from our mechanical asses
Right into their unprotected faces

And every night
we eat our dinner
And then give the trees
Our polluted leftovers

And laugh as they silently die
From our acidic fallout
Constantly floating
down on their skin

Yes, I wonder about the trees
And the birds and the bees
And everyone else

What are they thinking?
Are they plotting revenge?
Or are they merely there

Silently, watching, plotting,
Designing fiendish plots of revenge
Dreams of vast nuclear destruction

Cosmic diseases wiping out
everyone in the ass
Yes, I wonder
and dream and ponder

What is the meaning
of those silent green trees?
Standing on the corner

Quietly condemning us
With their quiet tears,
and falling leaves

In the winter they stand
Naked and alone
Covered with ice-cold snow
As we drive by nice and warm

And we don't care
As they stand out
in the cold
Shivering, plotting warm plans
of cosmic revenge
Is it too late for us
To become friends with the trees?

Or will the day come
When the trees will wake up
And gather together
All of the other
slaves of humanity

I have a vision
One morning
I will open the door
And see an army of wild things
Led by the green trees
Coming to arrest me
For crimes against nature

And I will plead,
I did not know
And they will laugh
and turn me
all of my kind
Into silent tombs

And we will stand
out in the cold
Like the green trees
Plotting dreams of revenge
Forever and ever

Until our day finally comes
And we can go out
and kill all the wild things
Perhaps we already have

 

This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Matt Mellor:
Write a poem personifying something inorganic like a building or a machine. What has it seen throughout its ‘life’? How does it feel about change? How does it smile or signify happiness? Play with this voice and see what it wants to say.
Example –
The Beam Engine
I still feel empty, since my organs were taken away.
Though it has been decades since my heart was full of coal
and my lungs breathed my beam up and down.
The rumble deep beneath the earth is long gone.
I’m thankful for the birds that nest in my skull
and the occasional squirrel or shrew that settles at my feet.
It seems the trade-off for a long life is that you must be still
because these little creatures spark with speed and color.
There is much-needed motion at my feet.
Not from workers talking about the shift and bosses about new seams.
But chirps, squeaks, and the rustle of leaves.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.
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