This will be the last entry to POOC & WOOT for 2020. Join us again on Jan. 4, 2021, when everything will be better.

record hi for seattle’s winter solstice
(59 f); a few hours later, ½” snow . . .
ho ho

here, 48 hrs of constant wind:
(25 mph, gusts 35); the gulf has
hurricanes, bangladesh has floods,
semiarid regions have drought;
maybe windstorms are to be
our x-treme weather signature.
sure seems like more of it
than when i first got here,
way back then, way back down
on the curve

the good news is
there’s not as much bad news
today — at least, not weather-wise

but climate is another story,

as brain-eating amoeba move
farther north w/warmer water temps;
& intervals between trees’ flowering
& leafing grow, making them grow less;
& tropical trees’ already-short lives
are shortening, w/hotter temps;
& the freshwater dumped by stronger
storms into the seas is giving
dolphins ulcerative dermatitis;
& the last drought in e. australia
shriveled the rivers so bad
they’ll likely be a trickle of their
former selves --

                                                    still,
it’s the holidays, season of joy,
love, peace, giving, compassion
and sucrose. why pine & grieve?
or grieve for the pines?
let us raise a warm goblet of what-
ever, to toast our warming globe,
appreciate our loved ones
over zoom, and savor the present --
the future is & always was
entirely hypothetical

1st day of winter: predicted hi: 62 f
yesterday: 52 — winter
not what it used to be, tho

i will live in the past,
the present, and the future!
scrooge promises — neat trick,
most of us being non-
trans-historical by nature

this little verse-chronicle
deals only in the present, only
turns into the past if you
let it or read the archives

in the mean
time,

who is being inundated?
it is easily told:
visayas & mindanao: 9 humans
dead, 1600 families affected;
n.e. malaysia: 6k displaced;
idlib province, syria: “our tents
are flooded . . . it’s very chilling”;
wales: “deep flooding” w/rivers
“fast-flowing & dangerous”;
n. australia: “wreaking havoc,”
washing away beaches;
e. iceland: “deluge of mud & rock”
most rain in 5 days ever: 23";
n. japan, in snow: up to 39”

not to mention the cleanup
in most of e. africa & s. asia

the spirits of all three shall strive
within me.

but in fiji, it was wind not rain:
cat 5 cyclone yasa: “entire villages
flattened, 7k in shelters

while in the arctic, trucks
fall through the ice now, &
people get stranded on
untethered chunks of it:
thawing faster than the models
predicted! who woulda thunk.

the shadows of the things that
would have been, may be dispelled!
they will be! i know they will!

ojala & inshallah --
just wait, it will be like
like a miracle like
waking up
from a bad dream
& finding oneself different, trans-
formed into someone
your present self never
would have recognized

2020 on pace to be
tied for warmest yr in nederland;
driest winter in winnipeg history;
hottest, driest ever in arizona
(214 bodies along border)

forests in s.e. brazil now net
co2 emitters; while largest inland
fishery (tonle sap lake, cambodia)
drying up; 1 million
humans s.o.l. but

still, the past always comes first,
grasping yr elbow, saying,
rise! and walk with me!

once upon a time, new york city
didn’t get the ft. of snow expected;
only 6-10”; but binghampton, n.y.
got 40 — half of that in 6 hrs. flat
(broke a record — and
“broken record” started to sound
 like a broken record);
while minnesota only got ½”
for december

once upon a time, floridians
dreamed of a tornadic christmas --
when 2 twisters hit tampa bay
in december:
roofs gone, cars flipped, etc.

once upon a meantime,
ethiopia had a civil war,
displacing 50,000 humans,
at the same time floods
displaced 283,000 more

once upon a time,
locusts invaded e. africa
in the summer; then
a cyclone hit & the locusts
came back again in the winter,
leaving 35m “acutely
food insecure”

once upon a year, asia-pacific
region suffered a record #
of natural disasters

once upon a single dec. week,
a landslide in brazil buried
entire families alive;
1000s of humans fled hi water
in java, as it submerged their
villages; queensland endured
record-breaking rainfall
on the coast, while
in the bush, drought persisted;
huge snowdrifts buried
niigata prefecture, 1000s of cars
stranded on hiways, towns
cut off, army mobilized;
a cyclone cost fiji
100s of millions of $$$ damage.

once upon a time,
the animals were in trouble,
the water was going away, &
the people didn’t know what to do.
so they prayed to their gods &
                                                                           .
and they lived
                     after.

lots of news re: the nor’easter;
nothing on 2nd cat 5 this yr
bearing down on fiji --
o, wait — there are two
cyclones bearing down --
tonga in the path, too

as rainfall records dissolve
in australia; snowfall, in japan;
as china desperately “seeds”
the clouds

& in bangla, 50k humans
still displaced, villages
emptying out, 300k affected
by multiple cyclones
& mega-monsoon season:
“everything is over for us.
a natural disaster comes
and we become destitute”
sez abdus sattar gazi

meanwhile

the aegean is overflowing
into turkey’s 3rd city;
tornado in cyprus;

wettest yr ever
for tennessee valley, topping
#2 (2018) & #3 (2019);
more red tides on w. coast . . .

signs and wonders --
but not god its our genie

fires on the taiga
fires in the rainforest,
on the savannah

“the world is getting warmer,
& life has to adapt to new
conditions. but if the warming
continues, many species
may have trouble
keeping up.”

uh . . . yeah --
like homo sapiens --
we’re out of the bottle
& we can’t put us back

“i’ve seen too many disasters
all over the world, & i’ve never
been somewhere struck
by 2 hurricanes in 2 weeks,”
sez aid worker vlatko uzevski
(per n.p.r.) — nov. 3 & 17,
eta & iota, for the record --
& honduras still “digs out”
from landslides, mudslides,
muddy floodsides, muck
over everything

“bridges, roads, schools,
homes, farms, clinics,
plazas, & businesses”

water system in the north
“100% collapsed”

(it can’t happen here it
can’t happen here it
lalalalalalalalalalalalala)

last time something like this
happened, 10s of 1000s
of hondurans migrated
to the u. s. of a.

for now,
100s of 1000s of humans
unhoused & many “crowded
into shelters” or homes
w/ friends & relatives or
sardined into rescue boats,
wearing masks or not — covid
not @ the front of the mind
when the world craters
& slides out from under you
or slides down on top of you,
i guess

no quotes from local folks;
reporter didn’t know spanish,
i guess

meanwhile,

e. australia lashed by storms;
some parts get 18.7” of rain
in 24 hrs. (beaches have started
to go away);

unalleviated alluvion for
n. luzon & java

(when the deluge swallowed
noah’s world, did people
on the other side of the world
stay dry?)

& in tamil nadu, the after-
math of cyclone burevi leaves
60% of rice crop water-
logged.    but rice likes water,
no?      yeah, at the right time &
in the right amount; if not:
grain discoloration disease
smut ball disease
rice blast
bacterial leaf blight

& all the things the after-
math can bring, the things
that don’t occur to one
to whom it isn’t happening,
not yet

the human cerebral cortex a-
mazes.    soon
it will have gotten its owners
to a place
where it can return
to its original function:
allowing them merely to survive.
which many already merely do.

look:
here’s a kind of “yr-in-review”
article re: 2020 asian floods:
china: 2,700,000 humans evac’d
nepal: 4,500 landslides
bangladesh: ⅓ underwater
total: 70m people “affected”
(whatever that means) &
“75% of india’s districts are hot
spots of x-treme climate events”
withal.

“today, climate and weather-
related events account for nearly
9 out of every 10 disasters,”
sez the red cross man, & he
wd know better than i

“humanity is shooting
itself in the foot,” the atmospheric
scientist sez.       it’s that reptile
brain that just has 2
settings: freeze and bite! --
only in our case, it has a
terrific problem-
solving apparatus
attached, that allows the alpha
humans to take a bite
outa the globe

(spaykin’ o’ crocs:
australia’s spring 2020
hottest on record; no more
domestic rice down under,
looks like)

an’ we’re all heading toward it:
↑3˚ c (37.4 f) by 2100 c.e.,
sez the u.n., wch makes u feel
for those poor 22nd  c. folks

& not only is homo sapiens
the most numerous mammal species;
now, biomass weighs in
less than human-mass
(~1.1 terratonnes), meaning
we & our stuff outweigh all
the plants and animals on earth
(& that doesn’t even include
our waste!).

some wise men once said
“we want our tails back!”
that and a collective
lobotomy might do the trick

sun abandons us
again, fading out on
another 68-degree
december day
in northern kansas

how bout this weather

i’m warm & malleable
both my coats are
drying nicely

sunset: time to re-lax:
no thin ice here

no time to think about
what’s happening
around the azov sea;
no time to record the
____est ____ on record;
or the missing citizens
of little haines, alaska

crepuscularity dims
attention, so in the after-
glow of such a day

no wildfire smoke like
ventura county has;
no deforested areas
larger than spain;

they said we were in
for a dry, warm winter
& so far it is --
no snow days

no inundations,
no mudslides
like n.sumatra, like
s. thailand, s.iran,

no drought,
no water shortage
like zimbabwe, like
namibia, no
“trending” — can’t

be asked --
no pledges of
net zero anything

just a vaguely mauvey
backlighting of boughs

“you have data
   we have stories,”
sd the anti-vaxxer to
the public-health reporter

people believe stories b/c
stories don’t make you
use your brain, alls you
have to do is respond

item (datum):
earth just experienced its
hottest nov. on (human) record

(please read that again. pause.)

then: item (story):

“a public letter signed by over 250
scientists and scholars from
30 countries, calls on
policy makers to engage more w/
the growing risk of societal disruption
and collapse due to damage to
the climate and environment.”

story:
“severe flash floods kill 20 in
s. thailand, ½ m humans affected”

story:
“unremitting torrential rains dis-
place 10k humans in aceh province,
17k homes swamped”

story:
“flooding sinks streets in bushehr
& fars province, iran”

story:
there’s no pill for this,
red, blue or any other color

story:
“cyclone kills 7 in tamil nadu,
inundates 300 villages”

story:
perth, australia woke up last tues.
to coldest summer morning
in 124 yrs, 44 f; 96 expected today;
while the canadian arctic’s in the 50s

story:
“some armed services
already see collapse
as an important scenario,”
they write, “requiring planning.
surveys show many people
now anticipate societal collapse.
sadly that is already the experience
of many communities
in the global south.      however,
the topic is not well reported &
mostly absent from civil society
& politics.”

stories about lack of stories
like the story about the birds who
stopped migrating years ago.

 facebook “blocked”
(a.k.a. censored, cancelled)
this here verse chronicle,
b/c somebody
it "includes content
that other people
on fb have reported
as abusive”
& of course won’t say what or why
(that’s how it works --
i’m joseph h but i feel like
            josef k

i could speculate . . .
(too “political”?
 too much reality?)

f.b. offers its own “climate
science info center,”
where you can read all about it
(all the news you need to know)
w/lots of articles to choose from
(all from u.s., but we’re
english-language realityville
& nothing lies
beyond our shores)

speaking of which, juneau, ak.
just broke its 24 hr record
for rainfall (5.08”), w/ ensuing
floods, landslides burying homes,
6 missing, etc. --
& juneau & s.e. alaska suffered
drought last year;

dec. wildfire in so cal:
25k people evac’d, 6400
acres burned so far
(“i got a text message from
my neighbor saying, ‘are you okay?
your street is on fire’”)

no, not o.k.
not one bit.
meanwhile, in notamerica:

3.7m humans suffered
“food insecurity” (meaning “hunger”?)
in guatemala, even
before the back-to-back cyclones;
“we were screwed
before the pandemic,” sez
16-yr-old damian ramirez.
“& now everything is getting worse”;

rainstorm, winds, lightning
blaze “trail of destruction”
in mozambique;
                                          & no rain
for a yr in s. madagascar:
they can’t even grow cactus fruit;
“my children didn’t       (they mix
eat for 3 days 7 then    (white clay
died, because i,                (with tamarind
their mother,                   (& eat it to
did not manage               (fill the belly
to feed them. i came
back in the evening, & i saw
the body of my child w/his eyes open”

this verse chronicle shd come
w/a trigger warning, i guess, but
the whole world is
a trigger

the rain keeps coming:
in vietnam, where the crops are ruined;
in thailand, where 371k of farmland
rots under water;
in java, where a 4 ft wall of water
rushed down a valley, villagers
running away;
in split, croatia, where the streets
“are mostly underwater”

& “heatwaves are killing a
record number of people,” sez
the economist (mag)

but
i don’t do long-term trends
i don’t do arctic
i don’t do animals (you’re welcome)
i don’t do hate speech
i don’t do porn
really, i don’t do politics

opec has a fb page;
so does exxonmobil;
as does american
cattlemen.
maybe i’ll report them
as abusive, since
they’ve caused the stuff
that stuffs
this verse chronicle so
why not go to
the source & block
the whole chaotic mess?

the sky is evil
why mourn

half-moon shadow crater
out-burst from earth

warmest-ever fall in moscow,
fall in phoenix, nov. in norway

drought & deluge
“turned into rivers” &c.

“have 9 & every time they
get sick from malaria

no food
no good place to sleep”

legs swelling
from being in water

family swept away
tourist’s body found

# dead, houseless, dollars,
8 hrs to get through

she’s trying to get rid of us
sd the witch

working in temps > 40 c
“what a lot of people do”

deforestation, rainfall patterns,
armed forces stretched thin

nature has always wanted
us to die

dynamic updates of
earth’s key data points

“it’s not what you wd expect”
this water through the roof