As many of you are no doubt aware, on June 8, the Tor edition of METAtropolis hits the bookstores. Naturally, we the authors of METAtropolis are excited about this fact. We’re so excited, in fact, that we want to share our joy by having a contest, the winner of which will receive a free! copy of the Tor version of METAtropolis.
But we’re not satisfied with running just one contest — why should we be? There are five fine writers of this Hugo-nominated anthology! — so each of the authors is running a contest of his or her own devising. If you go ’round to each of our Web sites, that means you will have five chances to win a free! copy of METAtropolis. How excellent is that.
Here is my contest:
In the comment thread to this entry, write a haiku about life in a future post-oil world. A haiku, just in case you need the definition, is a three line poem with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third (it’s actually slightly more complicated than that, but that’s the definition we’re going with for now). So, for example:
Our car rusts out back
Raccoons live in the back seat
And peer through windows.
Your haiku can be funny, serious, poignant, whatever you like, it just has to reflect a day when oil is gone (or near enough gone that the little that remains is a hot commodity). It doesn’t have to be dystopic — hey, we might just get out of the oil era alive, you know — so don’t feel you have to write The Road Warrior in seventeen syllables. Although that would be cool, too.
So: write no more than three haiku per person, and drop them into the comment thread by 11:59:59pm Eastern on Monday, June 7. Then check out the other contests as well. We’ll each announce our winners on the 8th — that’s the release date — and have the books shipped to you.
And now, follow these links to the other contests!
Enjoy, have fun, and good luck!
I know you don’t require a seasonal reference, but I can’t write haiku without them.
Every tree is bare
No heat, no lights, no fast cars
Winter of the world
Highways broken by
The assault of trees and vines
Spring has come at last
amidst tumbleweeds
the desert swallows the last
full service station.
(question about up to three haiku per person: would these additional haiku increase my chances?)
rust streaks in autumn
running runnels of brown scum
car cemetery cries
Katie was seven.
Asked: “What’s a truck stop, momma?”
How do I tell her?
Middle East all dried up
Termites Eating my Kindle
Damn I miss plastics
drill holes, fill with soil
water and sun so it grows
voila! chia car
We use more nuke plants
Spent power rods increasing
The beaches are clean
On my way to work
No longer smell the burning
Bones of dinosaurs
The road is littered
With the ghosts of dead machines.
All silent. Running.
–
Axe high, unmoving.
Rusted and grinding heartsprings.
A squeaked cry: “Oilcan!”
I don’t understand
What all the fuss was about.
Sunlight is free, bro.
The deep punctures bled;
The vampires drank, and squandered.
Mother bleeds no more.
Suckled Mother’s breast
but no longer satisfied.
Time for grown up food.
Oil companies now
Researching time travel tech
To plant more dead things
Peak Oil coming soon
Experts said, but now we know
Soon meant yesterday.
Palin’s “drill, baby”:
A forgotten rally-cry.
ANWR’s safe at last.
if we are lucky
we will grow lots of switchgrass
to fuel Gore Station
I broke and beat you.
Drainage, Eli, boy. Drained dry.
I drank your milkshake!
Only three?! Blast!
Okay, here are three of the eight I wrote before I finished reading the rules. *sigh*
—
No more plastic toys,
Gail Carriger fans rejoice;
All tech is steampunk.
Mad Max inverted.
Flintstones cars don’t get tickets.
Slow and Furious.
Islam is happy
The foreign devils have left
Can’t eat sand, though. Whoops.
I.T. three point oh
no plastic no computer
wetware for the win
Clear skies, cold winters
Old patterns of Earth are back
But now we must walk
O Polyester!
Your loss, worse than Tupperware.
Man, do I hate hemp.
Wind and Sun propel
Energy universal
Sky and Space and Time
Light of the Fusion
Heating the Earth from within
Past of tomorrow
Nuclear Reaction
Transforming the wars of time
Flying horse kittens
Scary little boy.
Mel is pushing 60 now.
Can Max win again?
Life without oil
Could win me a copy of
METAtropolis
None of these are meant to be related or a series, each to stand on its own. Just, ya know, in case anyone needed that cleared up. :-)
We worship the sun
Wind drives our lingering souls
Children of fossils
Burning dinosaurs
Forgotten baptism of oil
Engines thirst for god
Cannons fall silent
Tanks roll the deserts no more
Still, we pray for rain
Our car is now charged
We all head out to dinner
Boy I miss french fries
Jed lost it all and
moved fam back to the Ozarks.
Hathaway is sad.
Roan muscles jerk,
Strain the leather harness.
Transmission broke.
Hydrogen burns now
Water is my cool exhaust
Fusion makes it happen
Once we changed the world–
With intent, and without it.
Now we learn to change.
The light is fading.
Car headlights do not turn on.
Lamps don’t work either.
I don’t miss the oil.
I can get girls just fine in
My electric car.
But without fresh crude,
How can I keep polluting
With plastic bags?
I console myself
With the certainty that I’ll
Find another way.
Gears on ev’ry hat
Those cosplayers jumped the gun
My gears really work
First home-grown algae
Smells slightly worse than it looks
Green cookies: not good.
Are we there yet, Dad?
Daddy, what does zoom-zoom mean?
My feet are hurting.
Don’t toss that fry grease!
My Mercedes can use it.
I’m smart, got diesel.
Unemployment, son?
That was before the oil went.
Freight truck? Ten men pedal.
Drilling for power?
Why, when so much free power
Pours down around us?
In this paradise
We will gain more than we lost.
Springtime has begun.
Derricks raise up tall
Rhythms across land and sea
Turbines catch the winds
Blackness stretches out
Covering everything with
Spills of solar cells
Melancholy sights
Hushed roads of waving grasses
Wow, that train goes fast!
(A haiku triptych
Instead of three held apart
Go ahead, sue me.)
Hot, dry, wind blowing
I step across the river
The Mississippi?
Where did it all go?
Cars, Trucks, electricity
BP, why the sea?
The sun, wind and tide
Wonderful clean energy
Cannot pay the bill
a calamity
has lead us to clean power
i miss the dolphins
Hot dust fills the air.
Is my mask made with organics?
Who cares, I just breathe.
Hydrogen power
Suicide is tougher when
You can breath exhaust
Alaska pipeline
Sits lonely and forgotten
Make it waterslide?
People Riding Bikes
No Gas for them to Buy Here
Greener Earth, Fit People
The irony was,
when we needed ammo most,
no oil for powder.
My Mad Max Haiku attempt:
In a world dried up
A warrior comes forward
Feral kid smiles
My Book of Eli Haiku attempt, I tried to add the tagline to make it cool:
Protecting the book
He will kill to protect it
And faith is his path
My The Road attempt (the book, I haven’t seen the movie yet:
Papa and I walk
The road is hell-the sky dark
We must hold the fire
BP drank the oil
To the stars for the great fix
Colonize space now
She capped the last well,
dropped her wrench, and walked away.
The pear trees still bloomed.
Petrol byproducts,
we hoard our last Lego bricks,
more precious than gold
Oops, counted syllables incorrectly! What was:
No more plastic toys,
Gail Carriger fans rejoice;
All tech is steampunk.
should be:
No more plastic toys,
Gail Carriger rejoice;
All tech is steampunk.
:)
Silent derricks rust.
Refineries dismantled.
No parking shortage!
We’re all out of gas
But fusion is almost here
No, for real this time
I don’t miss the smell
Of the gas station bathrooms
Or so I pretend
The future is here
But forget about jet packs
Where’s my ZPM?
O Foolish Scalzi, you may end the contest now.
The Executive Committee of The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club enters the winning bid:
Magnificent She
Illuminates Existence
Without Oil Scalzi
Or how about:
Blacklisted Scalzi
Along with oil, long gone, smile
Beauteous Ghlaghghee
We refuse your offered prize in favor of a series of superb pictures (un-Photoshopped) of Her.
The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club
dolphin with iPad
e-mails B.P.: so long and
thanks for all the fish
Introducing the
4 in hand Mustang drop-top.
A real pony car!
This book seems great, so I give it my best shot with fingers crossed:
In a world gone mad,
where the greatest enemy
is you and ourselves.
What do you think
Even in the Gulf
Little now remains after
Straining seawater.
Real estate bargain!
Must sell – prime offshore platforms!
(Refurbish needed)
Sunshine battery
Plenty more where that came from
Get it while it’s hot
“When oil is no more
we will all grind to a halt,”
the robots lament
No oil means no cars,
but also means no cheap plastics.
There go all my toys.
Damn you, Scalzi, for giving me yet another creative distraction away from my primary creative work! I love haikus, and I cannot resist this challenge. Plus, FREE! book.
Fields of ethanol,
Cities contract. But Others
Choose to walk away.
A quarter-grand slug
ford bounces at the storefront
horses bray for home
Scrapmen lift the tarp
Chase them away, it’s spring soon
Still four gallons left
Out with the top down
The stars move on, car does not
we roll it back in
Once far is further
Blood red not black matters now
Who will be king now?
I will hunt for cat
Wonder the road with a book
My faith will guide me.
Flame from wax candle
Flicker across open book
I long for light switch
Fireflies rise high
In the distance, rusty cars
line highways, unused.
Ok, that was my first attempt at poetry since angsty teenagery. That was fun, thanks for the excuse John!
An ugly scene, but
you can’t live well now without
making more fossils.
Somewhat less distopian:
Oil has run dry
Engines of comerce abide
Powered by attoms
I’m really more of a sonnet kind of gal…
Once Fertile Crescent,
Once OPEC, Arabia…
What will it become?
Yay, the oil is gone.
Farewell BP and your friends.
Alas, my feet hurt.
Written by my hubby, Scott:
Our bodies huddled
Trying to produce heat
Can’t light the furnace
the lack of oil? meh.
What really bothers me is
all those smug hippies.
Oh, what will they make
My computer out of now?
No more geeks. All gone.
A world without oil -
The phrase ‘That really grinds my
Gears’ has new meaning.
Relax. Take a breath.
The world is not ending yet.
Just another stage.
Time to sort garbage
A bit more hungry this year
I miss my Harley
When oil is all gone
BP to drill volcanos
they tell us it’s safe
Cycling thighs are strong
Bellies full of local fare
Slower? We get there
remember before
black water fed metal worlds
lost machinery
no more oil – how sad.
but really devastating?
zombies at my door.
tinman frozen in
time long forgotten. away
goes the world we knew.
My son asked today
Daddy, what was plastic like
I told him it sucked.
the oil is gone now
wood burning stoves are back in
leave the city now.
with no more plastic
will the Chinese make toys with
old worthless T-bills
–
When the oil is gone
the millionaires will be those
who learned a trade now
–
no more fossil fuel
can we survive without it
faith in man says no
Hello there, neighbor
Gotta bury this hooker
My backyard’s full.
Hey, everybody!
We’re going to Disneyland!
Oh. No goddamn oil.
Children Of So-Cal
Know Everlasting Beauty
Gorgeous Green-Brown Sunset
No drill baby drill
will lighten the night again,
takes wax and string now.
it’s a simple idea:
you can’t Live, if you believe
the end is coming…
so don’t give a damn.
enjoy the peace and quiet.
i build sailboats…
i sail and fish,
and i have epiphanies
mostly i fish, though…
Rainbow-black layer,
Light absorbing, heat trapping,
Makes ocean desert.
Coal, wood or hand-cranked?
When I said I love steampunk
I didn’t mean this.
Man is ingenious
Electric trains, bicycles
Still no trans-mat disks!
Thank you for sharing
Your repository of
Hoarded plastic bags
No black gold anywhere
Weeds grow in the median
My moped is dead
gone now smelly oil
clean crisp halogen future
big profits not missed
Gliding through the dark
The God of Oil was grinning
Finally I stop
–
I remember oil
I remember it’s uses
I forget the point
–
No more oil, they say
I guess we get to go home
Screw democracy
Coffee, bananas,
Cinnamon, mangoes, and tea.
God, how I miss them.
Five visions of life
in the future; bleak or grand?
METAtropolis
Our skies, they shine clear,
now that we have reached the end
of petroleum.
In heavy traffic
Breathing in fresh city air
I see clear blue sky
Stopped for volt fill up
Lit a cigarette and leaned
Against the fender
Don’t miss long road trips
But I do miss when we’d play
spot the license plates
Our love, white orchid
stained yellow gold, worth its weight
in crude black oil
Oil gone, what to do
future winters bleak or grand?
METAtropolis
Nuclear is king
Four thousand miles per atom
Green glow is stunning
Empty, rusty pipes
Like dry bones, abandoned now
Relics of oil past
Glass walls towering
Clean symbols of the future
High in the clean air
Electric train stop
Easiest cross country trip
Remember airplanes?
Blurred sight, salty taste,
knife edge, blood drip, a question
“Your crude or your life?”
Scalzi’s slate demands:
“Whatever’s haiku is done,
now get off my lawn!”
Auctioneer cries out
What is this last barrel worth?
Going once, twice, sold!
Driving’s now a sign
of wealth, since only the rich
can afford the gas
Perhaps if we can’t
travel far away we’ll learn
to love where we are
too much too quickly
they all said it wouldn’t last
we turned to the sun
giant monsters turn
whump in the wind on the shore
the lights will stay on
can we risk this new
experiment–mutable
energy for real?
BP is dead and
OPEC drills for water now,
This is the future
We recycle the
Plastic continent into
Toys for our children
The sun passes ‘bove,
The trees and plants grow, while my
Home charges in peace
No birds call to me
in this black, shimmering swamp
wish we’d stopped sooner
.
washed the few we found
they died despite soap love tears
earth bled undersea
.
pushing my cycle
new tech tires crunch rotting twigs
bird flushed, flies, I smile
Must do this –
the road warrior
in seventeen syllables
now that is too cool
Found Barbie today,
but my daughter didn’t care
She’d rather skip rocks
—
We set off for Oz
My buddy needed a heart
He didn’t make it
—
Dystopia nigh
A private sector makes bets
We play Rollerball
stuck on this island
maybe I’ll build a canoe
at least there are sheep
—or—
acidified seas
dissolved all the pteropods
there goes my thesis
Light breeze, white clouds pass
blue birds chirp, water runs clean
dinos rest in peace
Wind and sun drive us
Past the oily wreckage of our past
Without stopping once
Gone is our learning
Scattered on lost pages
Past the great city’s bones
The fossils have done left
Now whatever we gonna do
Without our NASCAR
Black blood running dry
Forgot the power of blood
Tupperware gone.
Empty, toxic beach
No more seafood from the Gulf
A dry well, too late
John Campbell called it,
Way back when “The Dark Star Passes”:
Castor-bean oil fields.
(The Dark Star Passes on Project Gutenberg)
I remember whales
The Barrier reef down deep
My children will not
nuclear cars built
the grass and trees are dying
insurance rates soar
Biofuel easy to make.
Now all our highways smell of
McDonalds French-fries.
I hoard my plastic.
Cups, containers, forks, and knives.
Precious now; like gold.
Solar energy,
Wind farms, hydro-electric.
It’s all so boring.
The exhausted earth
weeps her final black teardrops.
We’ve harnessed the sun.
The sunlight pours down
And into my computer
Friends visit through Skype!
The oil rigs ran dry.
Forced to use green power. Now,
we wait for clean air.
They say it used to
come from old dinosaur bones
Texas tea, no more
Stupid car won’t start.
I wrung out the pelican.
I’m doing it wrong.
(@Marna: LOL)
The sails disappear westward,
You’re out there again -
Think of me in foreign ports.
1
We could no longer
Refine crude oil, so began
Refining ourselves
2
The new irony
A coal-made diamond worth less
Than rough coal itself
3
Daddy, what is that?
A gas station, son, relict
Rusting, redundant
Kid, it’s bloody cold again,
Throw on some more books.
That’s all they’re good for these days.
three eyed frogs are cute
though are very hard to catch
near the nuke plant pond
flowers no longer
valued for their beauty,
for their oil content
like rats we survive
through hell and high water
as nature resets
once upon a time
I woke in Nice and supped that
night in Old Bombay
hopeful beacons fly
no more across oceans and
cultural divides
we knit the world once,
but bled it dry, and squabble
in the dirt again
Formed from leaking oil,
streets once were paved in rainbows –
so my mother says
The jelly most missed
Fans of Buttsecks weep nightly
Petroleum gone
Thanks be to Barry
Who knew I did not need it
Still I long to drive
I think a post oil world won’t be so bad.
-m
Flying horse, dinosaur
Spinning still on totem poles
Over ancient pumps
What was it like, Gram –
To search for America,
Backroad by backroad
Coffee helps refuel
The car seat is a commode
God bless the methane
I swam in the Gulf
Ooh! I’m covered with black goop
I’ve never seen this
In millions of years
Oil reserves will return
Let’s start drilling now
Horse-drawn carriages
Destiny repeats itself
Combustion engines
Paved earth and chromed moon
Shoeless, we roam asphalt plains
I miss the aircon.
Hugo winner? Seer.
Paolo Bacigalupi
Foretells the future.
The dog pooped today
Mine plus hers gives us three pounds
Three pounds will cook lunch
Seems like there were barely more than seventeen syllables, total, in The Road Warrior…
A time of chaos
Warrior tribes went to war
Cities exploded
We had a contract.
You happy out there, are you?
I just want my gas.
The Lord Humungus!
Who’s gonna drive the tanker?
l’ll drive that tanker.
No hydrocarbons
Cheap plastic crap is no more
Good-Bye, Wally World
Hydrogen fuel cells
Just do not sound powerful
I miss my Mustang.
I remember when
The Midwest grew so much food
We could feed the world
Fat Elvis cries out,
How can he cook his sandwich
In biodiesel?
Watching the clippers
Sail out of the bay, you say:
‘Whale oil, who’d have thought…?’
My wife died last week
Sad, but so very tired
Bones burn well when dry
I didn’t know then
how great it felt to always
photosynthesize.
After crude ran out
they cloned tyrannosaurus
and buried him deep.
(Can you tell everyone thinks this is the easiest one of all the contests to win? Look at the volume of entries!)
I love hydrogen
not just for the car but it
makes me talk funny.
What I miss the most?
Oil for the door hinges.
I can’t stand the squeak.
BP sign in the dirt
Relic of a by-gone age
Off-world solar killed them
Wind in circles of light
do we miss our odors
feel the strenght of overwelming the obsticles
Mennonite cousins
Laugh at my rookie attempts;
I’m a buggy noob!
Amish relatives
Loan me seed for a garden.
We’ll can on woodstoves.
In lands where we ride
The man who can fix a bike
Has become a king.
A parade in town,
the last ‘Vette roars and kids scream
“Daddy, what’s that sound?”
#1
Out of oil, but I
say: “fuck diesel, we’ll always
have Johnny Walker.”
#2
Rejoice drivers of
the world: this is your chance to
get back into shape.
#3
The world in chaos.
I sit among the debris
and watch hippies dance.
Let me guess, John’s daughter is doing haiku’s in school?
Nope. I just like haiku-esque poems.
David Matthew:
Indeed, people should check out the other contests, as statistically speaking, at the moment there’s a better chance they’ll win in one of the other contests.
Solar sails tremble
As the flocks of blimps turn North:
The first sign of spring.
We grew flowers, first,
In the toxic fields next door
And burnt that harvest.
I dream of better–
For me and for my children–
But not for easy.
Soylent Green? People,
You don’t want to know what’s in
Your gas tank these days.
Fossil fuel dies
Screaming black oil from X-files
Gets revenge on us.
The matte-black auto
Catches every photon
Impinging the road.
It’s not in our cars
Oil is now in our water
And it’s in our air
Plastic from bamboo
Fuel grown from the sun and plants
This is not so bad
The aliens returned
For their young left so long ago
WHAT, you burned them ALL?
Good-bye fuel world
Self-powered, empowered
No lament for thee
Oops, disregard previous. Corrected here
Good-bye fuel world
We self-powered empowered
Won’t lament for thee.
I just realized I forgot to add The in my Haiku, hopefully i’m not disqualified, but its for the Mad Max one
In a world dried up
A warrior comes forward
The feral kid smiles
Starships drift away
Leaving an abandoned Earth
Searching for power
One tower still pumps
Futilely striving for more
Life goes on besides
They burned oil as fuel,
forgetting it was feedstock
for our plastic world.
I confess I miss
driving fast on summer nights
to nowhere at all.
Well, here’s my stab at it:
Kids play hide and seek.
Run along the empty pipes
Rusted from Spring rain.
Sunrise is smog free.
We frolic under clear skies
Breathing Summer air.
Merry
Woah! Lotsa entries. I’m trying to be collegial, but there are so many. Of course, a lot of them are _good_ which makes it easier.
A world without oil
where water is pure and clear
ask Kevin Costner
My Haikus:
doc brown had it right
mister fusion gets us to
eighty eight with no roads
I once used to drive
but then the price went way up
biking in snow sucks
the world of today
brought to you by bottom lines
and short sighted men
Sheep mowing the lawn,
bleating under dead streetlamps.
I knit sweaters now.
The Lion, Scarecrow,
Dorothy, the dog, move on
without the Tin Man.
Is it three haiku per contest? Or three total in all five contests?
Rich men hide behind
thick hinged doors that do not squeak
silenced with black gold
I squeeze ripe castor beans
oily fuel for my tractor
helps me plant more beans
the wells have run dry
now the oil barons grow corn
maize is the new gold
oh this modern world
lost highways, listless stop signs
teleportation
Kerosene maples
Feed low CO2 fuel cells
(Not good on waffles)
if you only knew
how hard it is to carry
your own mass around
corn powered airship
our lofty stagecoach arrives
with raisins from Tampa
**
beneath the ocean
century twenty plastic
our sunken treasure
**
this land was tundra
The Canadian Tropics
the new comfort zone
Fossil fuel gone
Cars run on our dead; refined
Soylent-Oil = people.
My second and third entries:
___
Miles of empty roads;
Solar-powered mass transit
Carries most traffic.
and
Plastic recycles—
Combusted gas, not so much.
Let’s get on this, NOW.
@mote 164
Sheep mowing the lawn,
bleating under dead streetlamps.
I knit sweaters now.
I love it; well done.
A sound investor
Bullish on energy stocks
Buys British Solar.
How curious now;
when only quiet can be found
driving around town.
Ready to rumble
Engines silently rev’ing
NASCAR breath easy
The final death knell
Struck the oil industry when
The gulf oil was spilt
Metal flying cars
Floating, jam the blue airways
I miss plastic combs.
GAS: $5 mil limit
please re-swipe your credit card
to keep filling tank
Now we have swallowed
all the liquid bones of time,
our throats ache dust-dry.
My sweet electric
buzz in the veins of my flat;
Nothing much has changed.
When they discovered
that there still would be beer, sport,
and love, no-one cared.
No, don’t say extinct!
Where have you hid my blue pill?
Look pretty sea bird.
Dry to the bone earth
We sucked you like good ribs.
Now you laugh at us.
Our stupid parents
Took the best, left us with the rest.
What a crazy mess.
(This should be easier to read)
No, don’t say extinct!
Where have you hid my blue pill?
Look pretty sea bird.
—————————–
Dry to the bone earth
We sucked you like good ribs.
Now you laugh at us.
——————————–
Our stupid parents
Took the best, left us with the rest.
What a crazy mess.
Driving down the street
courtesy of Fred’s two feet
gasoline is missed.
gengineered oil blight
and suddenly billions starve
though eden awaits
It’s been eighty years
and I can finally say
the beaches are clean
#2:
We just kept going
and never stopped the burning.
Then the air ran out.
Cars turned rust-corpses.
Earth sucked dry,nations pedal.
Freeways now for bikes.
*
When the oil runs dry,
Cities splinter: village towns.
Hello, feudal times!
*
Engines sputter dry.
Desert wealth dispersed — like sand.
Water: the new oil.
Grandfather spins tales
of oil and gas and tankers
Sunshine wasn’t free?
~ a haiku called “max” ~
on two-lane blacktop
a road warrior still dreams
of dinky-di cans
____________
~ exxon of the dead ~
zombies wouldn’t care
oil was meant for the living
the undead can’t drive
_________________
~ there will be none ~
dear upton sinclair
the wells have long since dried up
just like in rock creek
The oil is gone
But they’re still making money
BP bought wind farms
No more oil, but
Shell had an electric car
Patent. Quelle surprise!
With no more oil
Now they’re skimming for plastic
From the ocean gyres
my sex life is done
condoms made of soy require
too much spit as lube
who ever heard of
milk cartons made of paper?
back in time we go.
Lake filled with grey sludge
I reach down and cup my hands
It reeks of urine
Sun is hot enough;
Water heavy when broken.
Earth, a happy place.
Our will to power,
Gooey Neitzschean hubris,
Floats on the quicksand.
Power all over
But they couldn’t see its worth
Until we ran out
Hit by an auto
Electric motor humming
Didn’t hear it come
The oil shortage sucked
‘Til Halliburton made cars
That run on puppies.
But on the upside,
We used all the barrels to
Bury Michael Moore’s films
We spin our own thread
Reenactors had it right
Nerds now save us all
When we burned them all
The dinosaurs cried in rage
They have their revenge
Arson is harder
Setting huge fires is my art
Sparks drift like blown leaves
Fun fun! :)
With all oil gone
invention finally made
my dream flying car
Throughout history
We thought the best years were past
Now we know for sure
Cotton sways again
Fingers bleed on warm snow
Faster, boy, faster
Feet cramp and release
One more step just one more step
God I hate shopping
Crank it again—Now!
Shit. But look at the view, oh…
Try to catch the wind
got five miles’ worth left
in the humvee. saving it
for fourth of july.
mel gibson was wrong.
spiked shoulderpads and face paint
are so not stylish.
to commemorate
i tried to set my car on
fire, but i couldn’t.
#3:
Poor old Rush Limbaugh,
still singing “Drill baby, Drill…”
Christ, what an asshole!
cars run on sunlight
CO clearing from the air
and no gulf oil spills
It took much too long
to relearn the bygone ways
but we embraced it.
Brown water sloshes
against the skyscraper’s base.
Liberty’s torch: dark.
Silent engines roar
Cities breath fresh air again
Mankind chooses life
Fewer people, now.
No more nitrates, no more crops.
Cows graze in Central Park.
I love my new car!
The power? It’s electric!
A boogie-woogie!
A shuck of the corn,
It gets my motor running.
Ethanol is win.
Petroleum’s bad
But I wish baby oil
Wasn’t literal.
(I’m going to hell for that last one)
Algal blooming gold
in blackened sheen. Roughnecks gone
green, rolling ashore.
Remember rainbows
glinting in parking lots?
Look up, you dumb kid.
Nations load their Guns
Word is that oil is buried
In Australia
Hulking monsters die
Scavengers harvest their bones
Black blood shall not flow
Rusted creatures lie
Skeletons of past glories
Staring at new worlds
Past time to adapt
To re-invent once again
Just push our lives on
Forget about cars!
How will I keep my lunch fresh
without Tupperware?
Our nectar’s dried up
There must be more deep below
Let’s drill, baby, drill
I flew my last plane
to Spain, with no return home.
I’m single again.
These city wastelands
Ruined roads, our broken bones
But the ozone’s fixed.
They left the city.
Green grows up from between cracks.
Deer graze in Times Square.
I didn’t realize until I went back to read other posts that Jamie had similar imagery (almost the same last line!) to mine.
zounds.
The sky at night shines.
Forgotten lights re-emerge.
Now we remember.
The orange haze lifts.
We see now what they once saw.
Our ancestors’s stars.
Fields. Bright green. Sun’s sheen.
The party has just begun.
Our hands see the land.
Baked earth smirks at me
a rotten snaggletooth grin
mouth a rust red stain
~
‘fraid humanity
has had its chance to fuck up
now the bill is due
~
Peddle race training
hulking derelicts spectate
sand flies in my wake
Seas and Oceans cry
Clouds rain Sludge and dark secrets
Mankind kills, then dies
A last vintage whine
re.de.fines for the crude world
its Prohibition.
No heat, no movement
life is just living, shallow
without Texas tea
Uncle Sam Motors
Pushing Caddies out the door
Destined for nowhere.
Cars now burn water.
Oil, we no longer need you.
Thanks for the leg up!
The past is prolog
I want my shiny new jet pack
At least I’m not green.
Oil, armageddon–
When the aliens came back
Looking to fill up.
The bones of ancients
Burn no more; we all huddle
savage, naked. Lost.
where are the zombies
they left with the brains and oil
damn i’m out of gas
When the oil is gone
I hope I can still run my
Refridgerator
When the oil is gone
I hope I can still run my
Refrigerator
Seamless transition:
Blowing wind and beaming sun
keep cities shining.
Entry 1:
With corn-based plastic
and electric cars that work
the future is now.
Blue winter fingers
Carry books to fire
To read or to freeze?
oops I missed a word…embarrassing
Blue winter fingers
Carry books to the fire
To read or to freeze?
Oil in the ocean
None left to fill up my car
The world sprang a leak
In the death of oil
Seeds of the future are sown
A new age blossoms
Petroleum was
gas, plastic, fertilizer
How do we get food?
Oil fields all shut down
Burning wood… more pollution.
Choose solar panels.
Shell, esso, Q8;
Closed down, there’s no turning back.
No more oil, Amen.
Wake with the sunrise
Check the geothermal pump
And bike off to work.
(three entries, totally NOT related to each other)
Of all the oil-based
Things that have gone away, I
miss Vaseline most.
*
Replace fossil fuels with
Ingenuity, which we
Always need more of.
*
If only people
Were still around, they’d see how
Beautiful it is.
It’s tough at the top.
I love this forested plain
But I want a bath!
Dandelion buds
Can make gallons of fuel
Invest in a still
Wood legs are sexy
At least, my wife told me so
Can’t afford plastic
My gramma told me
Of fresh oranges in winter
I don’t believe her
Our plastic ocean
twice Texas, will out-haunt
Pripyat’s concrete bier.
***
Turtles birthed their young
On sand roads in paradise –
the oil washed away.
***
Backyard toys unearthed
epoxy eyes: Like New!
we bury them once more.
Powered clean and green
Our thirst for oil nearly quenched
Technology saves
Probably totally different from your world, but I work in biology and see a lot of very clever chemists.
Aging process skipped,
Cars burn corn. Plastic from plants.
Why does nothing change?
slave to saw grass,
chicago blooms in the sun:
hard work and warm beer.
slave to the saw grass,
chicago blooms in the sun:
hard work and warm beer.
—————–
(I know I should have
hit the preview button, but
I have no patience)
Drunk on Texas Tea,
Hangover predictable.
Morning shits now reign!
Solar panes glimmer
in the rising sun’s light;
a new era dawns
—
Crops sprout in small fields
worked by sun-tanned villagers;
the world flat no more
—
Grass turns to desert;
as soon as the oil ran out
so did the water
Oil slicks surround
Poor helpless, defenseless seals
I want my furry coat
***
The sun is winking
We fuse atoms on terra
Who is your God now?
Only needed three,
But thirty-one and counting…
Scalzi, you’re evil.
These are just for fun.
Here’s my competition ones.
Now. Must. Stop. Haiku!
* * *
Road Movie
Desert road truck-stop,
Bright in the darkness. I stop,
change batteries, drive.
* * *
Based on a True Story
Quiet cycle path.
A hedgehog! Stop, watch, enjoy.
In a car? Flat hog.
* * *
To Be Read in a Four Yorkshiremen Accent
When I were a lad,
All this were tarmac’d over,
Far’s t’eye could see.
PS. No hedgehogs were harmed in the making of these haiku.
Even though the world
has slowed to a walking pace,
she dreams of lightspeed.
The elders tell us
of cars packed in cheek to jowl
like herds of bison.
Look on the bright side
at least we will get to use
our S.C.A. skills!
Sweat-drenched, shivering.
Remember climate control?
Haiku keeps us cool.
The leaves are sprouting
The Earth can at last return
To ere we can breathe
Less smoke in the air
relief spreading all around
breathe freely again
**************
windmills as landmarks
roofs made of solar panels
no need for oil
*************
no heat for our house
back to horse and buggy days
oil has run out
horse and buggy trend
oil spills happen no more
it’s 2012
Oil from an oil plant
used to mean something different
to what it does now.
(that’s dif-fer-ent, with 3 syllables)
I had a strange dream:
We could burn stuff from the ground.
Why would we do that?
the last piston stalls
generators fall silent
dark greedy oil gone
why do we destroy
desperate, when sun is free
wind, waves, eternal
The Shell guy sees me
Looking through his hollow eyes
Death is all I see
sunlight is free, but
sadly tellurium and
cadmium are not
(not an entry, just a response to others’)
I’m stuck in Peru
The airplane is out of gas
How will I get home
Big oil has died out
There are no more off shore rigs
The birds are happy
The deadline is at hand. Good luck, everyone! I’m pretty sure I won’t win, but it was great to read all of the contributions.
I came back to the thread to read some more of the entries. I’m sorry I submitted mine! This one by Alia at 149 covers the same ground much better:
Solar sails tremble
As the flocks of blimps turn North:
The first sign of spring.
Alia, that’s an awesome haiku!
Late as usual
My grandmother died again
Seventh time this year
Silence speeds down the
Highways of yesteryear and
Never stops for gas.
Fewer people, now.
No more nitrates, no more crops.
Cows graze Central Park.
(reposted/corrected… I had too many syllables on the recount)
I thought oil was 2 syllables ( ya know, oy-il) my mom says its 1… i used it as 2…
Emma (age 13) @263:
I kind of agree with you. Oy-il works for me. Perhaps is depends on what part of the country you’re from. Also by the Japanese idea of sound units “on”, you are spot on.
Various others:
If in some near-far future you find yourself with a squeaky door and no petroleum products, use graphite. Not trying to stifle creative Haiku, just letting you know. Just in case. It works. (It’s a little dusty, but that should go well with a steamer punk future, right.)
Also. for some of the other petroleum-based [blush] activities there are some healthier water-based products. And skin softening is better with natural oils too (say OY-ils). Again. Just in case.