The Holocene Biocide.

Jamal aka Jamel hosts a series on youtube called Reaction, in which he reacts to the music his listeners asked him to play. One of the oldies but goodies he chose to highlight was Janis Ian's @17, which subsequently played in my head far longer than it was welcomed there. That was months ago, but this morning, with all this other crap on my mind, it was, inexplicably, back. So I wondered if I could rename it The Holocene and rewrite the lyrics in the same cadence, 'cause the melancholy of Janis's voice and music that obligingly plays in the background of my mind provides the perfect mood music for the tragic hopelessness of our self-imposed rolling catastrophe.

                                                                     The Holocene     

I learned the term The Holocene

As fires churned through evergreens  

While wealthy churls with reptile smiles

Built fortunes on our funeral pyres. 

Then corporate Green Machines soon grew

That lied to naïfs still green with youth

They ravished all that's beautiful

While telling lies they sold as truth

But those of us in ravaged places

Soon grew sick of smiling faces

Desperately we fled our home

Cyber lives lived on the phone

Who heed the call, "Come dance with wolves"

Who murmur vague obliquities

It isn't all it seems

In the Holocene

The normal climes they never knew

While wildfires raged, derechos blew  

"Have pity, please", refugees implore

But rich consumers just want more

And billionaires in zero G 

Look down on all humanity

And use their private companies

To force all mankind to its knees

Remember those who fix the game

Rejecting love for earthly gain

In debentures rated triple "C"

Of dubious integrity

The small town lies they tell to you

Leave dull surprise when payment's due

It charges users rates obscene

In the Holocene 

To those of us who know the pain

Of winter rains that never came

And those whose homes were swept away

While preachers incant, "Let us Pray"

It was long ago and far away

The world was younger than today

When dreaming always came for free

Our souls sold for cheap energy

We all played the game and didn't care

That what we burn befouls the air

Inventing lies we told ourselves

That energy was made by elves

They're touting in the Holocene

That burning trees is somehow "Green"

While petrol panels stretch for miles  

And windmills bring sardonic smiles

We all joined this deadly dance obscene

That claims our energy is Green

Tell ugly lies that "It's all free"

In the Holocene 

Life's just plain Mean.