The Green Devil
three carbon-neutral poems by Noah Birksted-Breen
Listen: Running commentary
(performance poetry)
I run around Hackney Marshes
on 19th October 2020
reading Arne Naess’ “Life and Reason in a Deeper World”
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I always like to do what I cannot do.
Trees do not talk.
Rivers do not talk.
Stones do not talk.
I always like to do what I cannot Tree.
Do do not talk.
Rivers do not do.
Stones do do talk.
I always like to do what Rivers cannot Tree.
Do do I talk.
I do not do.
Stones do do I.
Stones always like to do what Rivers cannot Tree.
The Green Devil
We need a walkable human,
walkable settlements.
From Space,
Mineral aquamarines and ochres.
Tailings ponds,
“Maybe a small nuclear reactor would be best?”
“Roses will bloom.”
Indium, neodymium, lithium,
Steel, silver, copper.
Oily coined term: “climate change,
solution, solution, solution, solution,
growth.”
Rare-earth, a
“high-capacity” dying empire,
black hole, no light,
“planet-spanning stuff”,
Decade Zero.
Death villages will fruit cancer.
Superstition was insisting upon
a “radical Revolution”.
In pursuit of a lifeless, weatherless sky,
“Lop off one head of the hydra”.
Face another.
(Found text from Jasper Berne’s ‘Between the Devil and the Green New Deal’ https://communemag.com/between-the-devil-and-the-green-new-deal/)