There are crimes of passion, crimes of lust,
there are times when judges are not just.
"Cut off the offending member,"
was never said (for I'd remember).
I've seen a sin pronounced a blessing
in the name of man's progressing.

I caught a thousand men engaged in rape
pounding their giant phallus into shape.
Like microbes of some strange infection
they worked non-stop. I watched the erection
across the virgin tundra's innocence.
I felt the monstrous strokes of violence
contracting with the freeze
expanding by degrees
burrowing through resisting soil
ejaculating the blackest oil
into the clearest streams and lakes
venom deadlier than any snake's.
The smothering film spreads so thinly
it covers the snows of Mt. McKinley…

It's not just caribou and bears I see
coughing oil, blinking coated eyes; it's me!
It's my spirit that this thing pollutes,
for on this land I've put down roots.
She has nourished me and frozen me out,
she's raised immortal hope and mortal doubt…

And now the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes
boils my blood and jealous anger provokes
to become the patron of her honor;
what right have they to lay this on her?
"Stand upright, progress, meet your challenger!
For what great ends have you ruined her?"

As mighty ships begin their trek
with a million barrels on each deck,
I wonder what this child of rape will be:
some crippled, oily-skinned deformity
with pipe-line for a baby-bottle,
growing up with love for only 'throttle'
and 'acceleration', it needs a fix:
its bottle turns needle to give it 'kicks',
and when the oil flows in its blood
and its whole spirit's turned to mud
it will not see the ugly needle scars
it will not see or know a thing but 'cars'.
And when at last it's old and gone quite mad
with nature's gift of wise senility
it may recall a dream that once it had
which it proclaimed 'the land of the free'.