L5 C poem Marangoni

Five Ways to Kill a Planet by Mercedes Marangoni

There are many unlikely ways to kill a planet.

Asteroids could attack Earth And cause a massive extinction

as it happened 66 millions years ago

when dinosaurs were wiped out of the face of the planet.

For this to happen all we need is for our ozone layer to work incorrectly.

Our planet could be swallowed by a black hole

causing it to split in two due to the difference in gravity.

All that is required for this is a large star to go supernova

and for it to stray near our solar system.

The Sun could die as stars normally do

and when this happens it will expand

and even reach Mars, destroying our planet.

All we need is to wait 4,5 billion years.

The Earth could crash into another planet

causing a catastrophic explosion.

For this to be successful, we need Mars to slightly change its orbit

and wait for our paths to cross.

However, these are unlikely scenarios.

Much easier it is to let humans keep control.

Thus, it would not require billions of years,

just wait a couple of decades

and dare to come back

and check if this “green” planet you call Earth is still there.

I wrote this poem using the same form as the poem I chose to pastiche called “Five Ways to Kill a Man”, by Edwin Brock. As Brock, I chose to enumerate the reasons/ways for the readers to be shocked. I also chose for the last paragraph to be more shocking for the readers to understand what is important and for them to remember the last message. Moreover, I made my poem  free verse as I thought that the rhyme would make readers more distracted. In addition, I used visual images as Edwin Bock for the readers to be able to imagine and to feel. For example, the concept of light which is portrayed by the Sun, and the darkness by a black hole. And is the Sun dies, our hope dies too as the Sun is our light and hope. Furthermore, I chose the line length to be be very similar to Edwin Brock’s. While I wrote 2 with 6 and 3 with 4, he wrote 3 with 7, 1 with 6, and 1 with 4. The purpose of this poem was to show we are deeply harming our planet and we are getting closer to a point of no-return. In the past century human emissions have increased and year after year it is becoming worse. We are responsible for damaging our planet and that is what I tried to reflect throughout my poem.