Tuesday is for STEM. And April is Poetry.  Yikes!

Today’s prompt:– the erasure! This involves taking a pre-existing text and blacking out or erasing words, while leaving the placement of the remaining words intact.

National Geographic published an article, “War on Science,” which I want to share.  I put it off thinking it was too big and deep to write a poem about.  Maybe not.  I had too much to erase, so I used some poetic license. Here goes:

 

War of  Tribes

Dr. Strangelove        drinks only rainwater

Fluoridation                       communist plot.  1964

2013   Oregon blocked “chemicals”

                natural mineral

hardens tooth enamel.

                     We Don’t Believe You.

   Doubters    war   experts.

Diabolical agency?

  make people argumentative.

GMO     in lab  or through breeding

                                      crackle with real and imaginary hazards.

                                        Global warming is a hoax.

We Don’t Believe You

Ebola      virus with supernatural powers

A dinosaur in Eden?   All life    evolved from microbes.

Biology incomprehensible without it.

The Earth is Square    or Galileo’s round

We Don’t Believe You.

Cling to intuition     naïve beliefs.

Crave patterns, reject randomness. Absolutes rarely declared.

Humans existed since time began.

Thousands      of scientists

                                across the globe

                                                       conspiring.

mavericks, naysayers, controversialists and table thumpers.

We Don’t Believe You.

Scientific knowledge used to reinforce beliefs

Science rational,                     Belief emotional.

Egalitarian and communitarians suspicious of industry

Individualists and hierarchical respect leaders.

It all comes down to high school

We want to

                belong,

                                      fit in,

                                                      be liked.

Filter bubbles     information     already believed

      Supports our Tribe      Who we are.

We Don’t Believe You.

Everybody should question

                 It’s scary

                          It’s rapid.

Minds change.

It doesn’t come naturally.    Neither does democracy.

Coldblooded science,    the killer app.

We Don’t Believe You.

If you’re interested in the National Geographic article, here’s the link:  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text  Feel free to let me know how I did capturing the essence in this poem.