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Poetry


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Spilling

By uche

19 June 2007

shell, agip, chevron, and mobil have all turned the niger delta to one soup of oil slick at various occasions...

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
agbudu
     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 niger delta is reduced
to one orgiastic drill

Reviews

Written by no1butClo (339 comments posted) 19th June 2007

Powerful, but a bit rough and long-winded. I don't quite understand your form either, you could probably cut this to about four really hard-hitting sentences.

I liked "fish caught in a stunned gasp" and the earlier imagery, but - and perhaps this is just due to the broken structure - I lose you a bit in the middle with the comparisons to other wretched forms.

love the idea, needs work

clo

Written by Phil (6838 comments posted) 19th June 2007

Really good idea. Needs a lot of work. I found the first half far too wordy. There were some very unusual constructions too.

These lines:
there’s no explanation
where dollar crushes responsibility

is the centre of your piece. Much of what goes before could be edited out to make for greater impact. What follows that is generally good.

Phil.

Written by stevetroster (1588 comments posted) 19th June 2007

I do like these 'Raping the world' themes, and the layout looked very much like a plume of smoke? Yes?
As above, bit wordy, but the idea is good.

Best wishes
Steve.

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