If we are ignored

The grass is grey, crisp bones poking through.

Buttercups, they are, dandelion clocks

chiming the century after the forests fell.

The echoes fertilise their corms, pushing to flower

at every survivor who stumbles across

holding up their torn petal-banners to give their voices

to the voiceless. Broken, worn, silenced before

by those who did not live to regret their iron fists, those who

choked on their black nectar as they feasted from golden mugs,

no-one left to mourn.

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Crude

Pine fresh, they say
stepping from the dark pool
that was flora, that was fauna,

that was lost, that was found
and now is used. Its lifeblood spilt.
Split into molecules, measured for worth, for potential
for making cloaks of green paper
with no chance to rest.

The ghosts of it chant as they chug from engines
itching to join the mists and rain back into the soil that was home.

Some do, only to find they have become poison and turn the earth black.

The Fuel

On one side of the street, people crowd,

staring across at the house that is no longer there.

Shattered glass collects their expressions

and pours them into the ground, where the foundations

of the house still lie buried.

The oil worms its way up and swallows

this small taste of humanity,

before being sucked out by a pump

more insatiable than itself.