When the valley was shallow, and the plains wide, I stood.
With legs akimbo, facing north, rooting my future, venerating my past
powers coursing through my bones, and even doubt
and Godlike Chakra, renewed,
I spat atop the land, unusually red,
Sterile, Cursed never to grow a tree
And I said to myself, “Let me put this undefiled land out of misery, Perhaps my opportunity, to be free;
So I sidestepped, twisted into a mid air manoeuvre,
And walked slowly, into the earth’s crust, through cracks and fissures,
through brown mud and shale, sulphur and siderite,
Into Galena and Sphalerite, Into darkness.
And Beneath the Overboarding, I shouted with a loud voice!
“Come yellow monsters”, I invoked;
the CAT and the big dogs, the Bulldozer, the 50 ton hound and her grey curved hand,
My Transformers..
Drunk with fossil fuels and burdened with glorious stamina,
they pummel and pack the red earth, swearing, screaming, moaning,
“Get thee behind us, ye impurities, We need to get to the blackness!”
and left a fat cyst, on mother’s precious body..
They arrive and settle, Good boys;
Enter my doctors with their needles, they slap flesh to expose vein,
and burst it with fat needles and draw samples for the analysts,
Chemical on chemical, refined to crude, they interact,
Do you speak english?, this is what you really are,
and they shall do unto you, strong things, like they did to us.
And ye shall be great…
Above the Overboarding, I conjure again the second round of monsters,
the local bank, the G-Boys, the Chief priests and pastors,
and Cosa Nostra;
Give me your blood money, and bury them inside this cyst
Let us reap where we haven’t sown..
Fortified, we strike,
And Look, HA!
The veins spill big black lumps of metal juice, In volumes;
and I laugh greedily and in astonishment, at the earth and its fatness thereof;
We suck, we swallow, we store
With help from diesel hungry beasts, we drink non-stop;
Who gives three shits, about the stench, or poison, or sulphur or NOx emissions?
This is the fucking harvest!
My eyes filled with tears, my mouth filled with spittle.
At this point, alas, I invoke the Largest of all monsters,
The Great Industrial beast of the Orient, the Insatiable One.
Oh Dragon of the Yangtze, Take my treasures for yours.
Take our pains for your pleasure,
Take our resources, for we know not what to do with them.
A Quid Pro Quo
She accepts my offer, so desperately, forever and ever and ever,
Give me more she says, till the day that I die, and for my many children;
With flaming breath, her eyes wide, her black lungs,
her brown teeth, her wry smile,
She asks,
With a cigarette and a cup of Chrysanthemum tea,
2000 tons per month, ok no ok?
I give you good price, my friend..