THE
ANTHROPOGENIC
ALPHABET
All of the land around us red for miles.
Ajka Alumina Plant Accident Ajka, Hungary
Below. One large mouth spitting the shadows of a thousand years.
BP Oil Spill Gulf of Mexico
Consider the streak of the sky. All of the bodies bloating, turned inside out.
Chernobyl Disaster Ukraine
Divided from itself. Exhumed from the mountain. How the river looked, crowded with death.
Do単ana Disaster Spain
Eventually. Night sky and the ocean, no longer different. Eventually.
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Prince William Sound, Alaska
Far away against the horizon, where everything is lost, the sun covered in smoke.
Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Accident Okuma, Fukushima, Japan
God? Maybe he doesn’t believe.
Gates of Hell Karakum, Turkmenistan
Hell comes from the heart of man.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan
Invested night still greedy for what can be found between the horizons. Impossible to stop.
Ixtoc I Oil Spill Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico
Jaundiced river, houses torn like sheets of paper, and bright white.
Jilin Chemical Plant Explosions Jilin Province, China
Kowtowed to the destiny manifest in the reek of progress.
Kingston Fossil Plant Spill Roane County, Tennessee
Living rooms, the new suburban palace. Everyone on the floor holding their throats.
Love Canal Niagara Falls, New York
More bones in knots. Backs broken. Children reduced to nothing. Always asking questions.
Minimata Disease Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan
Neither the ground nor the sky offer assistance. The past is a kingdom of graves, the future is nothing but string.
North Korean Famine North Korea
Open mouthed, consuming hundreds. Licking lips with flames.
Oppau Explosion Ludwigshafen, Germany
Pale reflections in the widening gyre. There is no crown for this.
Pacific Trash Vortex North Pacific Gyre
Halls of echo spiraling down, crashing over limbs of children, astounded by the swift blow of death.
Qutb Minar Stampede Delhi, India
Reports are often wrong. Reality changed. Green and red. Who’s to know the feeling of pain.
Ryongchon Disaster Ryongchon, North Korea
Sometimes are better than others.
Seveso Disaster Italy
To say the least— We have learned to flee for our lives.
Three Mile Island Pennsylvania
Unions of the dead march throughout the night.
Union Carbide Disaster Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Vague mist of thought, hand me downs of a foreign power, every new branch worse than the last.
Vietnam Agent Orange Vietnam
Weary eyes and terrible times, when there is no way to cross over into peace.
West Gate Bridge Collapse Melbourne, Australia
X marks the spot between conquest and lies.
Xichang Rocket Crash Xichang, China
Yielded this way, the substitution of war. Bodies rise to the surface.
Yellow River Flood, 1938 China
Zero sum agreements made between a president and millions of mouths.
Zimbabwe Food Crisis Zimbabwe
designed by swava pearl poems by andrew freiman