by Michael Monroe
“Drill baby drill!”
they chanted at the Palin rally.
What are they saying now?
As another rig is in flames,
the oily sheen
stealing sunlight
off the Gulf Coast,
waiting to attack pelicans,
fish, and denizens of the shore
with its black muck of hopelessness.
It’s the short-sighted policy of
“If it don’t affect me immediately,
then I don’t care.”
I don’t care if the poor stay poor;
it don’t affect me none.
I don’t care if the sick stay sick;
it don’t affect me none.
I don’t care if the ice caps melt,
leaving the weather in disarray;
blizzards and hurricanes,
record heat waves,
tsunamis in the Far East,
earthquakes in India.
That ain’t here, right?
I don’t care if the whole earth
collapses into a ball of oil
and fire and brimstone
that will engulf our great grandchildren.
It ain’t happening now, right?
And those politicians
can steal our virgin daughters
for all we care,
as long as they lower our taxes.
Michael Monroe's work has been or will be published in Gargoyle Magazine, Lyric Poetry Magazine, Alive Now, The Loch Raven Review, Manorborn, and various other publications. His poems have also previously appeared on The New Verse News. Two of his poems were recorded on the Words on War CD produced by Birdhouse Studios, and he often does poetry readings with Gimme Shelter Productions to raise money for the homeless in Baltimore.
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