EPSTEIN WAR

by KP Liles 

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

It was always about the crude.

Extracting the dark

archives out 

from under us.

A few wealthy men 

plotting to own

everything, down

to the last

liquified remains 

they groom 

to burn. Virgin 

trillions naked

for the taking.

O Power! the Power!

Unrivaled deployment—

Military, ICE, beyond oversight…

Taste Venezuela: 

lest we forget

it’s a jungle out there. 

War

drugs, law, lust

regime change

Mexico, Cuba

Minneapolis

Iran

Portland, Greenland

Behold! A politics of scandal 

heaped on scandal heaped

on scandal heaped on

morals. On truth.

Still, the trafficked girls

will not be

silenced. Drill! 

If you have the stomach for it.

It was always 

about the crude.

KP Liles desires a better, safer world for his daughter. For his son, his family, his students, his community, his fellow decent human beings. So, while he would have preferred to have spent time indulging in his newfound enthusiasm for birding, he felt obligated to put on the poet uniform for this piece.

WILLOW PROJECT

by Richard L. Matta

Al Gore has warned it would be “recklessly irresponsible” to allow an enormous, controversial oil drilling project to proceed in Alaska, speaking ahead of a decision from the Biden administration on whether to approve it. —The Guardian, March 10, 2023

Richard L. Matta grew up in New York and now lives in San Diego. Some of his work is found in Ancient Paths, Dewdrop, San Pedro River Review, Gyroscope, and many international haiku journals. 

OIL TRAIN DERAILMENT, MOSIER, OREGON JUNE 3, 2016

by Margaret Chula

Oregon has called for federal regulators to ban trains carrying oil in the state, ramping up pressure for more stringent safety checks weeks after an oil train derailed near Portland, the first major oil-by-rail accident in a year. —Business Insider, June 16, 2016

This summer,
figs ripen too soon
and drop
their soggy pulp

in the town
where nothing
eventful
has happened

since a murder
of crows nested
in the orchard
and wiped out
the cherry crop.

On the hottest day
of the year,
wind surfers gather
on the banks
of the Columbia
hoping for a gust.

Mothers sit outside
the ice cream shop
licking cones,
waiting
for their children
to get out of school.

In the shade
of a big leaf maple,
old men drink beer
and talk about
tractors.

At noon,
the sound
of the train whistle
as it rounds the bend

and then
a deeper sound,
like an empty well

as, one by one,
sixteen oil cars
tip over sideways
and burst
into flames.

Black oil
smothers
the orange poppies

   snakes
      along the ground

         slithers into
            the cold river.

Author’s note: This poem was written immediately after the oil train derailment and fires in Mosier, Oregon. My husband and I were about to close on a condo there. We're actively protesting trains of Bakken crude oil passing through towns along the Columbia River.

Margaret Chula has published seven collections of poetry, including Grinding My Ink which received the Haiku Society of America Book Award. She served as poet laureate for Friends of Chamber Music in Portland, Oregon, and as president of the Tanka Society of America from 2011-2016.