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In the dark, pressured silence The faint rumble of a drill Is heard. It draws ever closer Until with a sharp crack The pent-up sleep of Millions of years Comes to a sudden end. Metal snakes are laid Across the countryside Tanks in rings around ports Hold our reserves while Sluggish giants ply in The ocean swell to Guarantee supply. In the sea a platform stands Unmoving in the whipping waves A giant insect with its spikes Lodged in the sea floor Sucking the earth dry. On a glass sea metal girders reach out Their flares spouting flames And above them black smokes rises Into the infinite blue of an Arabian sky. Empty wells are given up Spent seams abandoned. The pumps have stopped The workers gone home Rusting derricks are left in the desert And rigs are dragged offshore and sunk. |
