05 February 2025

The Eve of Destruction 2025: 2 poems



POEM ONE: 

Perhaps
removing The United States’ money from the world
will stop major funding of wars and destruction,
though it won’t remove plastics and petroleum
from the world’s eco systems.
 
How do we want to die?
Slowly of poison, or
quickly of rockets and bombs?
Shot at the border, or
Rotting in a concentration camp?
 
There is no humane way to speed up death.
The United States toys with a futurism
That should have died with Italian fascism.
Let’s go to a promised land on this side of hell,
One we don’t have to go through hell to get to.
 
How do we want to live?
On the bodies of the disenfranchised, or
In partnership with our neighbors?
On profits stolen from the poor
Or on our fair share of gain?
 
My eyes and ears tell me
This is the eve of destruction,
But something in the earth tells me
Not to count on it, that we have time to change.

 


POEM TWO:

The United States, it is exploding
In 2025: the year that’s loading.
Violence’s high, and compassion’s missing
We had good neighbors that we are dissing.
Our president wants money to stay at home,
So, he’s given a trillionaire license to roam
Though all the secure files he needs to find
Where we can be screwed—as if we are blind.
And he tells us over and over and over again
We shouldn’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction.
 
The United States’ government is bending
Away from democracy, that’s what’s ending.
Congress seems unable to put through an agenda
It is letting go of authority although it was elected.
It’s waived our laws of non-discrimination—
Once again, white supremacists rule our nation.
We thought we had teams to slow climate change,
But our president quit the cause to his shame.
And he tells us over and over and over again
We shouldn’t believe
we’re on the eve of destruction.
 
The United States, it is exploding
In 2025: the year that’s loading.
We’re told it was a free and fair election
That votes went for money, that was the selection
So, we watch government programs fall apart
Which was the plan right from the start.
Democracy, they say, was slow and inefficient
Heaven help us survive what they find expedient
Yet people tell us over and over again
Not to be certain
We’re on the eve of destruction.

 

For Mary's prompt "Eve of Destruction" at What's Going On? 


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2025 Susan L. Chast



7 comments:

  1. Mary2/05/2025 8:53 AM

    Absolutely stunning, Susan! Both of them. They give me lumps in my stomach as I read. Thinking of the first poem, you have crystallized all that is going on. I do hope we have a time to change....holding on to a strand of hope. And the second poem, wow....just wow...I can just hear Barry McGuire singing THAT version! It leaves me speechless.

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  2. Sherry Blue Sky2/05/2025 11:15 AM

    How do we want to die, indeed? The far right has elected the means providing us with so many choices. I like the next question: how do we want to live? I resonate with your feeling that there is still hope. Not in the short term, which will be a nightmare for almost everyone but the oligarchs. But in the long view, as the cycle turns and turns again. Whatever we do to ourselves, if we dont push the button, Mother Earth will heal. Your second poem - so powerful. As to voting, I read that the repubs did a ton of vote suppressing and disallowing, which would have led to a different outcome. Not surprised. Powerful and potent writing, my friend.

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  3. Sumana Roy2/05/2025 12:06 PM

    Such poems are documents of a particular time. So both are very much important and relevant. Major portions of the world are in similar position or even worse for ages. Sigh.

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  4. Fireblossom2/05/2025 2:59 PM

    Dictators come and go--it's just a question of how high the price will be to get rid of this one, and what will be left by that time that he hasn't destroyed.

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  5. Penelope Notes2/05/2025 4:06 PM

    Both parts express what's going on very well ... and always glad to see a little lifeline of hope that says there might still be time to change.

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  6. Rajani2/05/2025 8:50 PM

    From the other side of the world - it is a good step to remove the money that has caused so much chaos around the world. There must be much more. Not that one expects substantial change but at least the conversation is out in the open. But meanwhile, America wants Gaza...the empire is relentless.

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  7. Sharp Little Pencil2/06/2025 9:55 PM

    It's amazing how all of us gravitated toward the American Far Right. How can we not? "There is no humane way to speed up death." A perfect line. Thanks. Amy

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