Saturday, December 4, 2010

Poetry: President of Tar

President of Tar

Damn this tar slick
Germany tomorrow
Apologize to those bastards as well.
Then Japan,
comfort with words there
Why not?
Covers up the burning inside my chest,
like milk over a hot wax candle.

Metal grille bulbs
on short black sticks beg up at
me. Greedy sows at feeding
time.

Before, I was
in the air above zero-point,
chopper blades beat air into mush,
blue on top and bottom… with some black.
A muffled whurr.
Birds
White
Why do I care?
Afterall, I’m not
aware. I sleep on greenbacks.

I’ll burn it off.
Forty foot flames from thirty seven platforms.
Creatures of the sky now will
die. Instead of those beneath waves.
Suck that money
from a million years past.
Harvest the Earth for all its
Worth.

Pipes
prick her like a thousand needles in a Japanese salon.
Make love through her crust.
Deliver me what I’m owed,
then Close the door on your way out.

I’ll rape those reptiles,
the ones that gave their bodies
so I can do 190
in my Corsa Red Ferrari.
Maintain a collection of
140 Nikes.
Have a house built around Kohler faucets.

I want my mile long
landing strip
for a VIP jet with crystal windows and a little golden statue
of myself on its nose.
I want my towers breathing smoke.
I want Horizon pumping juice.

Hello news camera.
“Let me start off by saying,
I’m sorry.”


I originally wrote this as a creative writing assignment. It went through various stages of revisions before I settled on this version. At the time, the BP oil spill was hot in the news, and public sentiment towards the company's president was very poor. Ultimately, previous to my writing of this piece, he resigned. I envisioned this less as a political poem, and more as a character study. Certainly the President of BP isn't this evil, but what if he was? That was the basis for this poem.