Black Liquid Gold

Last April, a catastrophic rig explosion killed 11 workers and caused a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that reached as far as Louisiana’s shrimp farms. Years earlier, I read that oil industry giants used little kids as refinery pipe chimney sweeps, only the temperature inside was so high, the fumes often caught on fire and burned them alive. Then the managers sent more kids to haul the bodies out. All the while, we forgot to turn our living room lights off for the night and burned more energy. I never found out whether it was true or not, but the image has haunted me since.

Humanity can’t live without fossil fuel, but perhaps we can make it more humanely. The smell of an oil refinery always gives me a strange, eerie feeling because the petroleum-infused air reeks of decay.

Here's my tribute to the one of the most destructive inventions of mankind: Black Liquid Gold. (The artwork is courtesy of All Posters.)

Ode to Black Liquid Gold

  

Black Liquid Gold

Thousands years old

For the high price

Bought and sold

 

For the high price

Of human lives

Black Liquid gold

Down below lies

Deep beneath the earth

Billions worth

Black Liquid Gold

Waits to be unearthed

Black Liquid Gold

Hides away from thieves

For the price of trees

And softly rustling leaves

For the price of elks,

Coyotes and gazelles

On the defaced land

Pop-up tents and wells

 

Thieves come in quick

On planes and ships

Hunters for the Gold  

Have to dig it deep

 

They leave behind

Scorched hills and sides,

People with not much more

Then their right to die

    

Black Liquid Gold

Silky, smooth, and sleek,

Yields to the strong

Zaps in the weak

 

Black Liquid Gold

Likes claiming lives

Human sacrifices

And high-power crimes

 

For the sake of pipes

Rising to the skies

Spitting out black soot

Stifling the sunrise

 

Boys with brown eyes

Will clean up the pipes

Sometimes they catch on fire

But they come in vast supply

 

So that Gods and Kings

Can make tins and pins

Fly their planes

Float submarines

 

Drive Jaguars

Nominate stars

Light up Christmas trees

Light up their cigars

 

Lighten up the night

Inside and outside

Make the very light

That’s keeping this screen bright...