The Third Nature [Today's News Poem, June 13, 2010]
They're stuck in this canyon of timber. They're waiting,
Like me, for the bus and they're dazzled by flickers
Of gasses so noble they brighten the evening
With gold—like the color of beer from a bottle.
The shards of a day that was lost fill the gutter.
The vapors ascend and combine with the moisture
Of fog on the hill and a figure approaches.
His balance maintained by the sidewalk, his breathing
Is fortified wine and his ear has a diamond
As small as the lamp at the edge of my vision.
He asks me for money. I hold up my transfer
To silence his plea—but he mumbles and rambles:
“Yeah crack's what I hoped for. You saw that. And still you
Are listening. Something tonight on the corner
Has changed me. I saw her—this tranny. She looked like
That Lucy... umm... Liu. And I know what we think and
We do makes the diff'rence in life and it's nothing
To look, but to touch her I'd earn it all back. I'm
A playa' who stepped off the game and I needed
To tell you I'm stuck and I'm hooked on the city.
And never before would I think I would ever
Confess to a man, or a stranger I want her.
I do. It's just... damn... when a man is more woman
Than woman I'll drink to her beautiful nature.”
And later I read of the snakes in the desert;
The hollow ones burst and from steel to the river;
Their contents have mingled with water. Pollution's
Ephemeral: mixed with the salt, in a body
Of desert. The earth isn't poisoned, it slumbers
Inanimate. Life too, is gone in an instant.
“A pipeline carrying mid-grade crude oil to Chevron Corp's 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) Salt Lake City refinery was shut on Saturday after leaking oil into a creek that feeds Utah's Great Salt Lake, said a fire department spokesman on Sunday.”
– Erwin Seba, Reuters, Sun Jun 13, 2010 5:29pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65C2VL20100613?type=domesticNews
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