Sunday, March 02, 2008

Further to my post on peak oil, something to illustrate just how dependent on oil we are:

REPOSSESSION

Down the long leg of the catwalker fishnet melts


to meshwork tobacco spittle. A black liquid garter.

Asphalt picks itself up – each scaly skin spread

between kerbstones is pulling free with a bass


pop. Every city suddenly a kicked nest of adders

coiling together into a spitting rope of pitch.

All along their spines household molecules un-


crack – hydrocarbon vertebrae whose Lego atoms

snap back into line in a chiropracty of electron-volts.

Cars at last cough up. Judder to a stop. Dig ignition-


deep to sputter swart apologies across the crisp white

shirts of their hosts. And every sump on its scrap-heap

bumps and boils its box-black kettle – rejoices openly


as through the stratosphere water-vapour and dioxide

recombine: weave fine mists of oil to drop charred

tapeworms of cirrus. Videos slime in the hand like


jumbo choc-ices. CDs in the rack pucker and shrink

to mushy black peas. Dentures gum up the works

jarred into toothless gaga. Those precise blocks


and avenues of electronics crinkle dark and

mediaeval. In the fast lane of the bowling alley

a caviar cannonball splashes ten full bottles of


devil’s milk – while those of the mobile who gas

this world down to its last nook into Porlock hell

shriek as they peel hot tar from lobes – Yes every


biro mothball racquet sags bleeds gutters

till the black string vest of tributaries resolves –

untangles towards tonsured ozone. Finally


we notice. On satellite-replays Presidents track

their sloed candyfloss economies writhing round

earth’s spindle – are caught on camera in black lip-


stick salve leaning to kiss the screen goodbye – and for

that moment the globe has a single gathering purpose

as a girl glances up from her fractions to witness


those filaments merge to a mother of twisters –

merge and rise and take her place. She watches

the whole black mass lift up and out into daytime


where it balls itself – steadies a wobbling edge

against blue to sling there its low fat circle. Crude

and glossy. She sees the birth of the full black moon


that lights our ways with dark.



(copyright Mario Petrucci 2008)



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