Long Rigs Poems

Masalembo
2016 © Fleetwood


Blue-green ocean tipped with whitecaps rolling toward the shore
Plane is humming with the pilot talking about life and your ride is there parked on the hill for easy starting next to the palm...

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As I sit in crumbling sand, that’s laced between my toes,
I wonder.
The gentle breeze caresses my cheeks,
whilst the wind plays daintily with wisps of fringe.
Faces are but a distant silhouette in orange hue.
I watch as...

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It was 6.15, in the morning, 
I was in a deep sleep, 
The rising sun pierced the thatched roof and made my skin burn,
I wrapped the blanket tight   - no use it was...

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The release of the naked sword of marine oil spills 
From the window and door of offshore platforms drilling rigs,
From the arena of natural oil sips to execute our living meals.

Petroleum hydrocarbon spreading its tentacle...

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The Whittlers

The stately county courthouse was their usual meeting place,
a columned Greek Revival, and a lovely public space.
They sat upon their benches under lofty pecan trees,
wood shavings on their ankles and some cedar twixt their...

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Inside The Mysterious Enigmatic Fragmentary...
Mortal Mind Of Matthew Scott Harris
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Seedy gobbledygook ergot
visibly argot bubbled, burbled, bustled...forth 
yea...give garbled, jangled, warbled shoutout
if ye doth render
mug gadabout totally confounding,

this unfettered voluminous confection
ruff lee...

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In a room stark & white 
A nightmare he will ride tonight 
Twisted sheets in a rider's grip 
as he settles in for that fateful trip 
silently he screams & shouts 
This time there'll be...

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It's sad when the only light in your life is one that is held under an object. It stirs and creates a demon that can't wait to get into your veins,
  and one day...

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GTF

Wizened skin like burnished leather
Thin, grey and long, disheveled hair
Clear, sharp blue eyes that seem to stare
Through sun scorched face, alert, aware

A ‘lived-In’ face that’s so expressive
Tales he tells read like a missive
His arms and...

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The road to my backyard is long and straight
Evergreen trees abound and provide welcome shade
Home to myriad birds, butterflies and the bees
Last summer their branches were sawn off, without notice
The orgy with power-saws lasted barely...

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my agent grew nervous
when he discovered
like the rising sun 
on a sea of shark fins
that one must gauge and become the gauge
what is it that heralds an improved model
claiming to have superior knowledge
my hospital masturbates...

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This story is about a little dog called Tag Along.
   He loved and followed a little fat boy name of Edwin Armstrong.
The pair were always seen together where ever they went,
  ...

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Radioactive fields where golden grain once grew,
magnificent churches, razed right down to the pew,
Kulak farmers starved out, four million of them dead,
free though and expression only lived in your head,
lives destroyed by camps, that archipelago,
how...

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We embarked on an adventure
That was quite quixotic
A scientific dream quencher
Searching for exotics

We started where we thought made sense
Out on the sunning docks
Where perhaps there’d be an immense
Native Great White Butt Ox

We packed all of...

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Please bring back paper bags,
I cry in genuine pain.
Those tight wrapped plastic covers
are driving me insane.

With scissors, knives and razor blades,
I hack and cut and snip,
trying to get the product out
from its clinging, shroud like...

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"Seek refuge in inner calm, free your thoughts from
               the external world and you will feel the rays of God's
 ...

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If you'd have lived and worked on Juno Ranch, you’d have come away better for it. It 
may not have seemed like it at the time but Pancho (Uncle Frank) would put it to you,...

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High pipe stacks venting hot burning gas 
In the Gulf of Mexico where fishing a blast
Oil rigs vent natural gas that never stops
The hot flames create - crackles, snaps and pops

This hot burning flame is...

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His old hands were calloused from all the many years of work and toil.
   His life seemed to be his work and the never ending search for oil.
Seven days a week with no...

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You marketing types love us.
Blue all over, fear of nothing a man can throw,
Quick to bow down when the boss come by...
not the one paying me...., 
but the one who rules my roost. 

Day breaks...

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Time to load up the family Dodge and hit the open road.
Our backs to California, the wheels rolling east towards the deep south. 
Arriving by plane wasn’t an option, the car was our only transportation...

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I’m no stranger to hard times, they seem to always live next door to me,
No matter where I’m at they follow very close you see.

But as of late they seem to be removing the food...

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He was a sweaty little man
But tall in the saddle
He didn't know a lot of things
But he knew 'bout cattle

He was born just outside of Fred,
Almost a town - not quite
First thing he saw was...

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There once was a man named Bobby Joe
From a small town in New Mexico
Always wearing pointed toed cowboy boots
With a three piece polyester business suit

Bobby Joe stood about six foot four
Was handsome and sun-tanned dark
All...

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Everything was in the right place; the shoes, books, furniture, utensils, remote control…. His house always smelled of fresh air, although it was hundreds of miles away from the ocean.

“Your house smells like a beach-house!”...

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