"pipelines" poems
We'll make this country great again!
I'll build that wall up high.
Climate change? Economy!
It's great! Don't wonder why.
I'll take care of all your needs and get you jobs you'll love.
Raise your right hand for the pledge and pray to God above!
Do your duty as a man and grab her nice and tight!
It's OK if she fights back, they like it rough, alright?
Civil liberties, really, who needs 'em?
Burn the flag? I'll just hang you for treason!
This country is first. To protect it is best!
Whose up for a fun little nuclear arms test?
Capitalism? Yeah, I'm the money master!
Pipelines! Who cares about ecological disaster?
Gays? Girls? Abortion? WOE!
If they want that, send em' down to Mexico!
I'll rule with blood and honor too!
I'll tame this crazy, jobless zoo!
I'll fight for you and family rights!
(Mostly for rich and mostly for whites!)
Minorities? No, I'm not a racist.
It's an alternate fact: Totally baseless!
America the great. America the free!
Put a bigger pair of **** on old Lady Liberty.
Goodbye all you immigrants!
All you do is steal and loot.
Leave a couple of 'em behind:
Someone's gotta pick our fruit!
Thank you all for choosing me!
This is very great and swell.
Prove that you will follow now:
Let's all go straight to-
Heil!
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 10:04 PM UTC
If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my ***** Iran
I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap, scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in the jungle,
I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,
Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska,
Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos,
Flush that sparkly Cesium out of Love Canal
Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain Sludge out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again,
Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little Clouds so snow return white as snow,
Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie
Then I'd throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood & Agent Orange,
Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American police state,
& put the planet in the drier & let it sit 20 minutes or an Aeon
till it came out clean.
Allen Ginsberg
Boulder, 26 April, 1980
.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 5:51 AM UTC
Homage Kenneth Koch
If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my ***** Iran
I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap,
scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in
the jungle,
I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,
Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska,
Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos, Flush that sparkly
Cesium out of Love Canal
Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain the Sludge
out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again,
Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little
Clouds so snow return white as snow,
Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie
Then I'd throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood &
Agent Orange,
Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out
the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American police state,
& put the planet in the drier & let it sit 20 minutes or an
Aeon till it came out clean
4.7k
Earth is our home. Your mind has just been blown.
People, animals, and stones are WAY more important than some stupid phones.
Moans and groans yell forth to continue our whining. Dining with a lover, means more than your ******** Pop the next cork on our bottle and celebrate life.
Happiness, passion, and love is way more powerful than hatred, greed, and strife.
Our plight to survive another day and night. The negative is Death, and the positive is life. Our sight., right, and fight to save the environment and endangered wildlife.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Shoulder your burdens as we all grow older.
Weather gets hotter, and sometimes colder. Some are scared pussycats, while others are lions that grow bolder. Close your folder of selfishness, while oil pipelines spread disaster. Do you care while you waste away, as the ecosystem wastes away faster?
Litter another critter of pollution. Cleaner air is the solution. Care to find YOUR resolution? Spilling out our guts all over an institution.
Garden the seeds of change to fruition. Us, the hoes, should fight the GMOs.
Planting organic crops on fertile soil, as vines of life flourish and grow.
Blow the wind that feeds flames of bitterness, while water sweeps over, you know?
So you don't give a **** about the Earth as your self-pity glows?
Shows how stupid YOU are while the passionate stays afloat.
Fear spreads chaos, while paying it forward spreads the most.
I can go on and on with this poem, but alas, I must slow the flow.
Every day is ******* Earth day. Let's do our part. Here's my toast!
Apr 29, 2013
Apr 29, 2013 at 5:32 AM UTC
love
dove
bird
hurt pain rain
washing laundry dryer shrunk
too hot summer beach tanned skins
bikini girls lifeguards bodybuilders
Schwarzenegger
robocop criminals politicians votes
lobbyists corporations special interests
stock exchange oil price pipelines
pollution profits leaded water oily shores
banking wall street 99percent
wealth CEOs distribution education defloration
exploitation union struggle macjobs
Walmart amazon tax evasion offshore banking
islands caimans reptiles alligators walruses
snapping turtles manatees albatrosses
birds
dove
love
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 1:10 PM UTC
Children of Louisiana,
Swept away and drowned,
In the river’s flood
And the ocean surge.
Never have recovered
Fully from the rain falling down,
And of a city that was purged.
Ignored by the government
And its fellow man,
Follow in a long line of sufferers
Since the melting, ice age glaciers
And even a tsunami in the North Sea
That wiped out Doggerland.
Dark Ages got darker as people ran
And Britain’s white cliffs were sheared.
Times got better and then got worse,
But the people carried on.
Now, the floods are a weekly thing,
A blip on a newscast,
As lost as the victims in a mess
Of other disasters,
Of wildfires, droughts and don’t
Even mention the quaking earth
Or volcanoes! We can’t take credit
For causing those!
Rich men in their castles,
Feasting and clapping each other
On their fatty backs,
Rolling in the spoils and spills
Of oil, on the flaming water of
The American plains.
Sheikhs in old Mesopotamia
Whine about oil pipelines,
Promised to them by President Cheney,
While the people starve.
Bloated oligarchs spread destruction
All over the world, from
The Congo to Chernobyl,
Melting icecaps and raising the sea,
Sinking islands where they don’t live,
Vacationing in the Maldives,
On special rates before those go under.
They won’t fix Miami, but let it sink,
But not before they plunder
The empty towers built on foolish dreams.
Of course, they’ll be the last to go,
Crammed into mansions up in the Alps,
Fighting with the European nobles
Over who gets a crumbling palace
Now sitting on the last ice floe.
A few American cousins round each other up
To catch the Dixie Flyer down to New Orleans,
Trying to hide from the polar vortex,
A dazzling case of ignorance and greed,
Only to find the tracks buried in the sea…
Down in the mud of the deep, brown sea.
Mar 10, 2021
Mar 10, 2021 at 4:26 PM UTC
I am the oxygen running
Through the veins of London,
I am weaving my way through
The crowds of people,
Commuters,
Tourists,
Family,
I feel the wind
Of the trains
Pulsating through the air,
Running its fingers through my hair
And over my body,
There metallic cries cascading through the tunnels,
Where will I go?
The Northern line to Tottenham Court Road?
The Central line to Liverpool Street station?
There is only one destination I yearn for,
Above the concrete,
The tiles and wires,
The pipelines and emptiness,
I want to be at home
With you again.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 9:38 AM UTC
Packed in
Van shifts
Tires spin
Band roams
Desert dome
Hippie echo
Violin outskirts
Nuisance collaborator
Car crash drunk
River rolls forward
Boat rolls on
Crocodile way
Locust love
Backwoods harmonica
Dead wasp windshield
Oil pipelines old Texas radio
Kentucky derby fashion show
Rock stars and movie actors
Young kids and rock gods
Music recorded on the road
Apr 14, 2012
Apr 14, 2012 at 9:04 AM UTC
My bed was built beneath
whirlwind puzzles
and bow-tied time,
pulsing menageries
and lopsided rhymes;
circles and rainbows
and dark-alley’d dreams,
suns that explode
beneath smoothed-over seams.
But between the cracks
of the never-ending skyline
live shadows and demons
and sewage-filled pipelines.
There are toy-soldier boys
carrying small metal knives,
their sharp-tongued solutions
highlight well-thought-out lies;
and the bubble-gum girl armies
that ride into the night
spread pink viscous poison
and dance out of sight.
These spectacular visions
linger over my head,
with too-full rainbows
and ship-wrecked dread;
every highlighted secret
connects the stars of a time
where each piece of the whole
was malleable and mine.
Mar 13, 2012
Mar 13, 2012 at 9:13 PM UTC
I have felt love so deep
Touch my hollow crevices
A bulb that fade in and out
The mount that houses delirium
A fire that burns the dark
A thunder that shutters crystals
A royally hypnosis of the beats
The jump swig, a rhythm swing
I have felt love so deep
The river depth overflow
inside my mindscape
A water escape in pipelines
where the moon and sky
mix in the scrapes of ebbs
A royally hypnosis of the beats
The jump swig, a rhythm swing
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 7:08 PM UTC
I watch you take your life out of the sunlight
And smash it down the sewer
Squeezing it through the pipelines
Smoking it out
I watch you take your future
And put cigarettes out on it
I watch you take a knife to my throat
Slice the most delicate skin and richest blood
And tell me
I didn't know everything
All along
Aug 22, 2016
Aug 22, 2016 at 9:53 AM UTC
So I sat here writing a letter,
trying to recall events like the weather,
why red and blue have been fighting forever,
the kid in the newspaper with some new fever,
or that house that set itself on fire.
I wrote off the lines and on the back of the page
about a mother and father who abandoned their children,
a street that went up in a riot,
the telephone poles and the trees,
pipelines and the sewers, and their eventual decay.
I wrote, “Will you marry me,” one thousand times
Then I wrote, “I don't love you anymore,” one thousand and one.
I sat here
and I wrote a book that wasn't long enough
it couldn't explain the things I wanted to say.
An AK-47 sent through the mail.
The tower that fell with no plane.
Flower sales and drive-by’s,
what really happened to JFK?
Why wasn't it **** Cheney?
But I barely wrote half of what I could think.
A declaration of war, like it's a game.
I sat here, alone with my 90 degree angles
every night is a race to the bottom of the glass.
A prisoner to my own mind
which I cannot escape.
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
Thy blowing blue breakers
sweep overboard,
take color away from
the faces of the men,
washed in white walled foam
and cyanotic sapphire
speak novels in seconds
no well placed punctuation
such is the way of the sea
*I'm searching the heavens
for happy notes
over sour tones
and mis-pitched harmonies.
As I stargaze, I'm trampled
by depressive episodes and felonies.*
Now,
your bold bone breakers
bring drought and salt
but nothing savory here.
Nothing ventured and
nothing gained,
streets washed of life, weeds,
wear and tears
the only water to be found
wasted on self expression
instead of survival.
Such is the bane of our fathers.
Women's feet shuffled like playing cards
and men's backs bare a striking resemblance
- striking? stricken -
to the laugh-lashed shaming
of their own emotional dilapidation.
And might your mind be free
from weather and tears
you have but to hear/see/smell the broken
to become undone
Like so many pages, dead dry leaves
nestled inside leather-bound luxury with a broken spine.
Thy mindless diction fixes
namebrand problems to
hot button topics,
trafficked into pipelines
down polluted broadcasts of
girls girls girls...
Your voice bellows and breaks.
We are nothing.
Whatever color or shape you take,
We are nothing.
Whenever you go and
whichever language you abuse,
remember in your heart that we are
nothing
like
you.
Women's feet shuffle on hardwoods
bringing heart to the beat
as men's whitewashed canvases carry
the quintessence of quixotic movements
in and about key changes
the same as we paint our love
around the fringes of each other
and frame unfamiliar faces in lip-locked sepia
blushing, brushing
we carry the color of previous strokes until
we are each our own historic hue
staining others for future use
in cobalt, mauve, maroon, chartreuse
We harness our pain
in the alchemy of experience
to create beauty.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
If I may presume to summarize the concept,
"Eminent Domain,"
The Big P People own the Right of Way
And the little p people
Have temporary possession of the opportunity
To get out of the Way,
Or to be smashed under the wheels
Of Big P Progress.
Appropriate compensation will be paid,
Of Course,
And living spaces provided
To the little p people,
While the Big P People thunder by on their new highways,
Overpasses, airports, causeways, and thoroughfares.
Reclamation will be done over the torn earth
To re-bury the unearthed little p people's dead,
To restore damaged aquifers,
To "replace" trees and grasses "just as before,"
Never mind the pipelines,
The concrete roadways,
The railroads,
And the power lines....
Eminent Domain...
Rhymes with Capitalist Gain,
And little p people's pain....
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 12:18 PM UTC
Imagine this centered: And lunch with Kirk and Uncle Bubby
Even the birds are staying home today
Those flocks and flights whose accustomed spirals
Make animate the skies are grounded by frost
And leave the waters of the marsh in peace
Young men uniformed in Nomex 1 and beards
Spiral into Hollier’s Cajun Kitchen
From the barges and the maintenance shops,
Cracking units, pipelines and hotshot rigs
They are smart, tough, and strong; they fuel the world
And pose for pictures with the concrete pig 2
1 Nomex is a flame-resistant material developed by DuPont and is worn by workers in many industries, especially petro-chemicals. The man or woman in Nomex keeps our cars, our lights, and our lives functioning.
2 There are in fact two concrete pigs outside Hollier’s (pronounced “O-Yays,” says Uncle Bubby).
Jan 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019 at 8:54 PM UTC
Trump's targeted the EPA,
an agency that's in the way
of rich polluters everywhere
who foul the water, land and air.
Employees there may no more tweet.
With journalists, they may not meet.
No external communication.
No Facebook use across the nation.
For issues such as climate change
don't fit the script that Trump's arranged.
Oil wells and pipelines he has planned,
to snake across the hinterland.
He wants to dig and burn the coal.
He doesn't care. He has no soul.
He showers his troupe of alt-right *******
with platitudes and promised riches.
Oh what a sad and tragic day
when Trump destroyed the EPA.
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 8:45 PM UTC
i always fall for boys with broken trucks
who track sod into the living room
and smell like cattle and cologne
with knotches in their hips from
tying dollars 'round their waists
strung from welding rigs and pipelines
bad backs, torn hands and ripped
ligaments scarred over and healed
with whiskey--
those men that cause a raucous
but attend the song of every whippoorwill
who take peace with them down in the
holler and carry sunlight on their backs
they've got bones so cold you'd think they'd
crack but they've been bucked by bulls and
motorcycle seats, and are quieted by the sounds
of a woman breathing--
softly, slowly, in and out
softly, slowly, in and out.
how do you not fall for the broken?
softly, slowly, in and out.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
When it comes to forgiveness
In truth there is not a single body
to be forgiven except for your own
Let go of that self with an inner smile
Let these subtle flocculation dissolve in the pipelines
By inner knowledge
and flow Down the back
drawing the borders of the levator scapulae
On Both sides of the neck
where both lines shall meet to run down
through the gutter of the cervical curve
A clearing and space created for it by compassion and
Skin Replaced by the regenerated cells of the mind purified
And that pseudo-self delivered from the sacrum to the ***** of mother earth
with a truthful farewell.
Oct 26, 2016
Oct 26, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC
My heart beats
to the pounding
of your fists
on the drywall
of my heart.
My veins pulse
to the beating
of your words
on the windows
Of my mind.
My bones rattle
to the slamming
of your body
on the pipelines
of my flesh.
My "house" crumbles
to the exposure
of your soul
on the foundation
of my life.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
Six feet and thunder
where I'm under the bolt and the surface
finding refuge in a hollow hole knowing not home
Six feet under yet alive and death of me wonder
how it could miss me?
thereby chance would frisk me
find me worthy and whisk me
away to not-a-north unearthly
Cascading in the bright holographic shadows of the horizon
Learning about this fairytale
Y fair tale or furry tail
Will it ever end? Will I go back to my hole?
Playing chequers with moths
using rocks for marbles, shooting away to pipelines
the rock finding its way to tunnels
I play relay but I'm still here
The rock is gone, it the only thing I can enliven,
the closest I can get to freedom - for now.
It's dark, I'm all alone
weakened, betrayed
ask me I will tell you all about despair
so far away is cheer and merriment...
Winter comes and it will pass
its the coldest time of the year
I cannot wait for Spring so the flowers can grow and give me hope
I'm here in my tomb, begging, crying, pleading:
somebody hear me, somebody set me free
this cannot be all I can be
Would mystery fool one to take a shovel and dig me out? Would it? Can it?
Six feet under, buried by the thunder
carried by the moments of impact
where the world hits and the winds clap
Wondering if I will ever shine again
even suicide would do me no justice,
you could hand me a rope and I couldn't hang myself upside down
and my fellow skeletal inmates wonder why my heart doth frown
Sand we once were, now as dust we linger
Waiting for the next wave
hoping for sunshine, if not then heat waves.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 12:15 PM UTC
ring ring (A Facetime call)
Mom: “Hey *** what’s up?”
Me: “Well, let’s see..
“We have an armed law enforcement that’s scared of the civilians they police.
One political party so corrupt it’s no longer interested in serving the people.
Half the population ignores the one real power mankind has - science.
Hackers shutting down pipelines, schools, hospitals and companies.
News networks that are allowed to just make up lies as “news”.
Half the population that’s determined to be uninformed.
Social media is destroying the minds of our children.
A political party that encourages its followers to die.
A world that’s quickly poisoning itself to extinction.
Religions that endorse obvious liars and guns.
An economy that depends on our self doubt.
Foreign enemies manipulating our elections.
A supply system on the verge of collapse.
A party encouraging resurgent racism.
A badly neglected infrastructure.
Inflation starting to heat up.
A near endless pandemic.
And a **** culture.”
Mom: after a moment of silence
“Have you been reading the news again? You KNOW you tend to obsess.”
Oct 28, 2021
Oct 28, 2021 at 9:10 PM UTC
Automobiles and road rage
Alcohol and steering wheels
Texting and driving
The Military and U.S. Steel
Banks and mercy
Fashion and comfort
Priests and Godliness
Trade alliances and imports.
Republicans and The Constitution
Bigots and non-Caucasians
Christians and homosexuals
Unbalanced equations.
Elitists and human flaws
The rich and the poor.
Anger and loaded guns
You and the Jews next door.
They are naturally equal
But they’re exactly opposite
Sometimes they balance
But often there’s no sense to it.
Attorneys and justice
Lobbyists and compassion.
Science and the church
Trust and politicians.
Monsanto and private farms
Pipelines and ecology
Fracking and water rights
Minorities and majorities.
Hope and desperation
Citizen’s rights and Tea Party
Media and integrity
Politics and morality
Free enterprise and monopolies
Censorship and free press
Freedom of expression
And illegal social duress.
They are naturally equal
But they’re exactly opposite
Sometimes they balance
But often there’s no sense to it.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 8:43 PM UTC
Last July was the hottest month, ever.
That is, ever since we ‘officially’ started tracking weather.
The Earth is lying on the bathroom floor, wrists severed;
I wonder whether this is a storm we can weather,
Or whether we’ll all perish together.
Greenland lost 12.5 billion tonnes of ice sheets.
That is,
The island that was 80% ice is becoming one, giant, puddle.
The earth is about to be slain, a warrior conceding defeat;
Huddle up, give your loved ones a cuddle,
For we are so troubled that any aliens out there must be truly befuddled.
My generation was born with a guillotine looming over our heads.
An impending sense of dread,
As corporations put on their executioner’s hoods,
And reach for the lever.
A sordid reality in which to save the planet,
One must fight one’s own government;
A reality in which we may have done permanent damage,
A reality in which valour gets no monuments,
But only condemnation and incarceration.
Remember these names:
Julian Assange. Currently awaiting an 18-count indictment charge from the US.
Edward Snowden. Could face up to 30 years in prison if the US get their hands on him.
Chelsea Manning. Spent 7 years in prison.
Abdullah Öcalan. In prison since 1999.
Edem Bekirov. A man who has been dying in prison for the past year.
Benny Tai. Sentenced to over a year for fighting for what is right.
Nasser Zefzafi. In prison for the next 20 years.
Kerry Shakaboona Marshall. A man who received a life sentence aged 17 years old.
Simon Blevins, Richard Roberts, and Richard Loizou. Sentenced to over a year for fighting fracking.
Tim DeChristopher. 21 months for fighting oil and gas pipelines.
Stella Nyanzi. The raunchy Ugandan poetess who cannot be tamed, no matter how many times prison beckons.
This list is basically endless.
It is saturated in blood that drips from the corners of the page,
Soaked in the rage of brave men and women, living in a cage.
Depression. Exhaustion. Numbness.
Oppression and a lack of caution,
Leading us to this dumb mess.
This can no longer be the norm.
We can no longer conform,
Nor can we compromise or haggle;
We must reverse our own demise,
For this is our generation’s battle.
Aug 22, 2019
Aug 22, 2019 at 1:56 AM UTC
As they make their way down my limbs
Trailing closely the paths my blood takes
Hardened from years of misuse
A map showing where I've been
And in the shower they disappear
Overshadowed by plump blue pipelines
Having healed
Tempting me to be imperfect again
To build more railroads and enjoy their ride
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 5:22 PM UTC
War is profit full stop.
Let’s get it straight and start from the top.
Who are we fighting? What do they wear?
People who live in caves and don't have life fair
This is the enemy of us all, really?
Blowing up city buildings from mountains easily
Our soldiers searching rocks in a far off place
Looking for an enemy that has no face
Financial overlords from across the sea
Learning early that war is profit and a guarantee
An event, then a call to arms will be heard
As soon as the building’s in New York were disturbed
Terror spreading across our great nations
We’re under attack, we’ve been threatened, our families foundations
Fake reports painted to portray
Confusing leaders into mistakes of a massive way
Intelligence agencies with links with the banks
Just to raise funds for more missiles and tanks
Iraq, Afghanistan, pipelines through the Caspian Sea
Establish bases and destabilise the Middle East
Then the big one, there’ll be no choice
They refuse to reform claims a muffled CIA voice
That’s it, they’ve ignored our instruction
Time for democratic war, oil and destruction
Turning children into terrorists for decades to come
An eternal war, good for a few and profit for a hidden some.
Through media hysteria people will cry
‘We want blood, revenge, the enemy must die!’
Funding war by borrowing from the bank
As we pay for death through some awful tax prank
The evil distain of the cancer man must be reined in soon
Or the earth and the average man will all be doomed
They laugh at our boys searching in caves
As they sit back sipping whiskey at the Bohemia parade
South America, South-East Asia, now Arabia
Is there anywhere left?
The element across our shores will not quit
Their lifestyle too much to sustain fit
Their currency shrinking, the banks desperate
Robbing honest American homes to address it
Carving a war path for far too long now
****** and death acceptable as long as profits grow
*“Give me control of a nation’s money supply,
and I care not who makes its laws.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild.*
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 10:09 PM UTC