something philosophic there is
                                      about rocky groans
                                 when you tunnel
piping
                       earth's bowels
                            for hydrocarbons

sweet or sour
                                 crude is crude
                                      no poetry
derives from chimney
                                 smoke
                            of oil flares

                            cold-blooded
                                 glass eyed gaze
from the slick
                                      surface
the sleek
                                 flapping
slowly
                            dying
                                 of what use are fish
in a creek
when quick
                                 liquids swell untapped

epileptic the Atlantic
surf and blue
                                           over shells

                                                debris
                       collecting           over ages

salt in the breeze
not distant smells of oiled freshwater

think of dagger in the hands
of a raped bride

                            when the sheen has spread
                            think of Valdez
Ogbudu
                       Adje

                            how easily emotions flared
you'll understand there is
                                 no hashish in their action
                            restive youths sniff no fragrance
in polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons

there's no explanation
                       where dollar crushes responsibility

no insulation
                       when the simple river wears a different sheen

nothing's fresh about the swamp
                       when leaching begins

no remediation
                       for the fish caught in a stunned gasp

no expiation is munificent enough
for my flammable land

                       fumes overwhelm breath
                            toxins overwhelm the warm-blooded
                                 and amphibians and reptiles
                                      no logic is needed
                            why the delta is reduced
to one hydraulic drill
just orgiastic