Deadly Heat
“There is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner
in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through
carbon dioxide release from burning fossil fuels.”
July 1977, Exxon Senior Scientist, James F. Black
Enrique Morales, and undocumented migrant from Jalisco, Mexico,
Working in hideous heat in a lettuce field in the Salinas Valley,
Watches his ten-year-old son,
In a row over next to him,
Suddenly collapse and die,
Overcome with heat stroke.
His last look at his father
Was a look of disbelief,
A pained smile turning into paralytic fear.
It is 2050 and the planet is in uncontrollable regression,
CO2 levels at 550 ppm.
The oppressive heat and humidity have already taken its toll,
Climate Change killing a half million people.
Exploited undocumented aliens die in corporate owned fields
While living closer to the biosphere than in it.
It is far to muggy for humans to do the work of humans.
Vulnerable, Enrique Morales and his crew of eight laborers,
Reticent and obedient,
Don’t demand rest, shade, and water for fear of retaliation.
It is so hot the rest of humanity,
Living in self-contained cities,
Remain behind closed doors,
In temperature-controlled houses,
Rarely, if ever, venturing outside.
There are fewer fields to work now.
The soil is dry, baked, and dead.,
Soil so dead, not even insects survive.
Climate scientists, measuring global emissions,
Concede the summer of 2050,
Is the hottest year ever measured on the planet.
When asked about his son’s death,
A grieving Enrique Morales told a digital reporter
That it was impossible to do the work.
That he felt like he was being worked to death,
That he was, in the short term,
Just another statistic in an Inconvenient Truth.
While Democracy Slept
In 2015 privacy advocates recorded smart TVs were recording everything: please pass the salt; we’re out of laundry detergent; I’m pregnant; let’s buy a new car; we’re going to the movies now; I have a rare disease; she wants a divorce; he needs a new lunch box; do you love me?
The age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power -- Shoshana Zuboff
Google, Facebook, Microsoft,
Apple and Amazon
Spy on you,
Invade your users’ privacy,
Sell information
To advertisers.
You gave them your searches,
Your emails,
Your texts,
Your tweets,
Your likes,
Your online shopping habits,
Your online friends’ names.
You gave them access to your phone,
Your computer,
Your face,
Your voice.
What did you expect?
They data mined you.
They have your medical records,
Can even predict how you’re going to die.
The “emotion tracker” you wear
On your wrist
Measures your skin temperature,
Your heart rate, Your blood volume pulse,
Tracks your psychological well-being
Determines who you will vote for
In the next election.
You are obese, diagnosed with diabetes.
You buy a smart refrigerator
That locks itself
When it knows you’ve had
Too much to eat.
To curb your cravings,
You look inside your refrigerator
Using a transparent touchscreen
Without opening the door.
Your hunger pangs disappear.
You would kill for a Dove bar.
You miss a car payment
And an electronic Big Brother
Insurance algorithm
Turns off your ignition
On a bumper to bumper freeway in L.A.
Your house has been mapped
From the inside.
Just ask Amazon’s Alexa
Or Echo’s Dot kids.
You try to delete
The information they’ve collected.
But you can’t.
They never wrote code for it.
Facebook’s carpet bagger,
Mark Zuckerberg lies to Congress.
Congressional members,
Technologically challenged,
Agree with what he says.
In the end,
When surveillance capitalism’s
Micro dust lands,
It settles on…
Are you ready?
And who would ever have guessed?
Algorithms to live by
Privacy for the rich.
Marisa Was Born Today
Into a world that may not be a world
In a hundred years.
Polar Ice caps melt,
Eventually disappear,
Causing serious flooding,
Change the map of the world.
Seas eventually rise
250 feet above sea level.
The oceans acidic, lifeless.
Permafrost ice thaws,
Reaches a tipping point,
Unleashes billions of tons
Of methane into the atmosphere,
A greenhouse gas more potent
Than carbon dioxide.
Man, naturally greedy and short-sighted,
Gluttonous from his belief
He rules over nature and
God provides everything,
Is cooking himself in a cosmic soup
Like a frog slowly boiling in water.
The human race,
now an endangered species,
Faces mass extinction.
Victor Henry (Victor H. Bausch) served in Viet Nam with the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, 1967-68. Afterwards he earned a B.A. in English (1978) and an M.A. in English (1982) from California State University, Stanislaus. His second master’s degree, a Master of Library Science, is from San Jose State University (1989). He is a member of Veterans for Peace. His poetry and prose poems have appeared in small press magazines, anthologies, and e-zines, such as Slipstream;The Paterson Literary Review; Nobody Gets Off The Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book; Vietnam War Poetry; The Homestead Review; Red River Review; Dead Snakes, and Misfitmagazine, among others. His book, What They Wanted, was published by FutureCycle Press.
“There is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner
in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through
carbon dioxide release from burning fossil fuels.”
July 1977, Exxon Senior Scientist, James F. Black
Enrique Morales, and undocumented migrant from Jalisco, Mexico,
Working in hideous heat in a lettuce field in the Salinas Valley,
Watches his ten-year-old son,
In a row over next to him,
Suddenly collapse and die,
Overcome with heat stroke.
His last look at his father
Was a look of disbelief,
A pained smile turning into paralytic fear.
It is 2050 and the planet is in uncontrollable regression,
CO2 levels at 550 ppm.
The oppressive heat and humidity have already taken its toll,
Climate Change killing a half million people.
Exploited undocumented aliens die in corporate owned fields
While living closer to the biosphere than in it.
It is far to muggy for humans to do the work of humans.
Vulnerable, Enrique Morales and his crew of eight laborers,
Reticent and obedient,
Don’t demand rest, shade, and water for fear of retaliation.
It is so hot the rest of humanity,
Living in self-contained cities,
Remain behind closed doors,
In temperature-controlled houses,
Rarely, if ever, venturing outside.
There are fewer fields to work now.
The soil is dry, baked, and dead.,
Soil so dead, not even insects survive.
Climate scientists, measuring global emissions,
Concede the summer of 2050,
Is the hottest year ever measured on the planet.
When asked about his son’s death,
A grieving Enrique Morales told a digital reporter
That it was impossible to do the work.
That he felt like he was being worked to death,
That he was, in the short term,
Just another statistic in an Inconvenient Truth.
While Democracy Slept
In 2015 privacy advocates recorded smart TVs were recording everything: please pass the salt; we’re out of laundry detergent; I’m pregnant; let’s buy a new car; we’re going to the movies now; I have a rare disease; she wants a divorce; he needs a new lunch box; do you love me?
The age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power -- Shoshana Zuboff
Google, Facebook, Microsoft,
Apple and Amazon
Spy on you,
Invade your users’ privacy,
Sell information
To advertisers.
You gave them your searches,
Your emails,
Your texts,
Your tweets,
Your likes,
Your online shopping habits,
Your online friends’ names.
You gave them access to your phone,
Your computer,
Your face,
Your voice.
What did you expect?
They data mined you.
They have your medical records,
Can even predict how you’re going to die.
The “emotion tracker” you wear
On your wrist
Measures your skin temperature,
Your heart rate, Your blood volume pulse,
Tracks your psychological well-being
Determines who you will vote for
In the next election.
You are obese, diagnosed with diabetes.
You buy a smart refrigerator
That locks itself
When it knows you’ve had
Too much to eat.
To curb your cravings,
You look inside your refrigerator
Using a transparent touchscreen
Without opening the door.
Your hunger pangs disappear.
You would kill for a Dove bar.
You miss a car payment
And an electronic Big Brother
Insurance algorithm
Turns off your ignition
On a bumper to bumper freeway in L.A.
Your house has been mapped
From the inside.
Just ask Amazon’s Alexa
Or Echo’s Dot kids.
You try to delete
The information they’ve collected.
But you can’t.
They never wrote code for it.
Facebook’s carpet bagger,
Mark Zuckerberg lies to Congress.
Congressional members,
Technologically challenged,
Agree with what he says.
In the end,
When surveillance capitalism’s
Micro dust lands,
It settles on…
Are you ready?
And who would ever have guessed?
Algorithms to live by
Privacy for the rich.
Marisa Was Born Today
Into a world that may not be a world
In a hundred years.
Polar Ice caps melt,
Eventually disappear,
Causing serious flooding,
Change the map of the world.
Seas eventually rise
250 feet above sea level.
The oceans acidic, lifeless.
Permafrost ice thaws,
Reaches a tipping point,
Unleashes billions of tons
Of methane into the atmosphere,
A greenhouse gas more potent
Than carbon dioxide.
Man, naturally greedy and short-sighted,
Gluttonous from his belief
He rules over nature and
God provides everything,
Is cooking himself in a cosmic soup
Like a frog slowly boiling in water.
The human race,
now an endangered species,
Faces mass extinction.
Victor Henry (Victor H. Bausch) served in Viet Nam with the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, 1967-68. Afterwards he earned a B.A. in English (1978) and an M.A. in English (1982) from California State University, Stanislaus. His second master’s degree, a Master of Library Science, is from San Jose State University (1989). He is a member of Veterans for Peace. His poetry and prose poems have appeared in small press magazines, anthologies, and e-zines, such as Slipstream;The Paterson Literary Review; Nobody Gets Off The Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book; Vietnam War Poetry; The Homestead Review; Red River Review; Dead Snakes, and Misfitmagazine, among others. His book, What They Wanted, was published by FutureCycle Press.
