second poetry dose!

this one is (obviously) written about living on the oil rig.. lyrics in italics shamelessly stolen from Natalie Merchant's Where I Go.

Venice, But No Gondola

I: On the Way

He says out loud (not necessarily to me)

“If you want to see poverty, just go to Venice.”

Funny how they’re both water cities,

whether it’s Italy or Louisiana.

Instead of a gondola, I’m in a Chevy Suburban

traveling down a highway.

Houses on stilts line the roadside,

the smell of oil seems to hang

among the cars on blocks, dark swamps with bright

green algae on the surface. Natalie Merchant

wails from the car speakers, a borrowed CD.

I didn’t borrow it, the lyrics reach me anyway,

climbing over the old stone wall

I am bound for the riverside.

When I look out the window, the leather seats

seem wrong for the situation. I feel compelled

to respond to the poverty comment but don’t know

what to say and the awkward lapse inevitable

of a four hour car ride with a stranger

fills the car. Natalie sings anyway, unaware

there is nothing to say, find a place

on the riverbank

where the green rushes grow

see the wind

in the willow tree

in the branches hanging low

We reach the dock and I board a boat headed out

to the Gulf. I watch from the back deck as we push

through the heavy water and every now and then

my gaze lands on small houses, isolated

by the swamps , connected only by dilapidated

wooden docks. Later, I notice the water has cleared,

the houses are gone and ocean water laps the tall grass

all around us.

II: On the Rig

My shift will be midnight to noon. I learn

to love rising in the darkness, eating breakfast at 4:30 a.m.

I learn exactly what to tell “Q” in the mornings

to have my eggs cooked just right. I learn what to call

the men. Later, I even learn their names.

I find that when the metal

and the men and the mud

become too much,

I can always find the sea.

It stretches out so far that I can no longer remember

where I might find land. At night, I forget that it’s only water;

the other rigs light the skyline as if they are outskirts

of a metropolis.

One morning, as the sun rose on the water

I noticed that the blue was being overtaken by a deeper,

darker brown. It’s the Mississippi, they tell me, even

twelve miles of water between us, it still finds the way

all the silt spilling into the gulf,

staining the blue. child it's lovely

let the river take it all away

the mad pace, the hurry

the troubles, the worries

just the river take them all away

flow away.