Tag Archives: End of mankind

Long Before, for Forgottenman’s Poetry Prompt, June 22, 2025

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Long Before

Long before our years began,
before the mind of nature had conjured man,
the artists of the universe,
(artists that they were)
that started it all,
started imagining a combination of science and art,
imagining its form and actions and its thoughts.
Its beginning a particular straying of atoms,
beginning that parade
that at its tail end––
at its possible tale’s end––
its greatest creation or its
greatest, perhaps, mistake.
Perhaps that last thing that ended its own being,
that humanity-declared champion of creation:
Humanity.

(Would that we had lived up to our name.)

 

Please go HERE to read ForgottenMan’s poem that introduced the prompt.

Divisible

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Divisible* 

Our species has malfunctioned and we’ve finally met our match.
It’s waited all these years for the right time for it to hatch.
First there was the ice age where we had to deal with frost,
but it seems like global warming is the place where we’ll be lost.
We’ve flaunted our dominion and must be reprimanded
It seems as though our prototype’s about to be disbanded.
It’s ironic that a virus so small that it’s invisible
might be the thing that proves that mankind might be divisible.


Divisible: capable of being divided by another number without a remainder.

Prompt words today are malfunction, flaunt, prototype, frost and match.

Unnatural Ending

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jdbphoto

Unnatural Ending

What if we always chose to do
what our instinct told us to?
Perhaps by holding it at bay,
it’s reason that leads us astray.
When we leave our natural self behind,
it seems to get us in a bind,
inventing things I fear will tend
to bring about our eventual end—
like nuclear bombs and autos and
devices getting out of hand.
Our instinct prompts us to have enough
while minds lead us to other stuff
like avarice, gluttony, greed
wherein we want more than we need.
If mankind descended from Adam’s loin,
its end began with the first coin
stamped out in gold or other metal
better used for plow or kettle.
That granting of a value to
what we couldn’t wear or drink or chew
gave birth to what we are today—
ready to blow it all away.

The prompt word today was instinct.

Earth’s Verdict

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Earth’s Verdict

This is the day we laud our Earth
who, from the first day of her birth
has gathered, to increase her girth

around her core, the fertile soil
that, by our labor and our toil,
helps us retain our mortal coil

by giving sustenance to all
residing on our spinning ball.
Yet, we have spread oil’s deadly pall

over this globe that gives us life
until, I fear, our home is rife
with that which cuts us like a knife,

our umbilical to sever.
Always, we deem ourselves so clever
with our improvements, but we never

seem to see the full effect––
how each gain is a defect.
It’s on this day that we reflect

on how we’ve served our mother ill.
And now we swallow that vile pill
and thereby finally pay our bill––

that fine we’re issued as we wait
for that improbable ending date
when all our poisoning will abate.

Knowing still, down in our heart
that all the evils that we start
are but that fatal stabbing dart

that will eventually bring an end
to each family member and friend
as nature’s laws we seek to bend.

Now as we wait in our human queue
to receive the verdict that we’re due,
there is  one fact that’s sure and true.

As we vanish, here and yon,
and as, eventually, we’re gone,
the Earth will still be going on.

Both NaPoWriMo and WordPress gave “Earth Day” as a prompt today.  I’m also using my illustration to fulfill Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.  Three birds, one stone.

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/04/21/flower-of-the-day-april-22-2016-azalea/

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-two-2/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/earth/