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He could not die when trees were green, For he loved the time too well. His little hands, when flowers were seen, Were held for the bluebell, As he was carried o'er the green. His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee; He knew those children of the spring: When he was well and on the lea He held one in his hands to sing, Which filled his heart with glee. Infants, the children of the spring! How can an infant die When butterflies are on the wing, Green grass, and such a sky? How can they die at spring? He held his hands for daisies white, And then for violets blue, And took them all to bed at night That in the green fields grew, As childhood's sweet delight. And then he shut his little eyes, And flowers would notice not; Birds' nests and eggs caused no surprise, He now no blossoms got; They met with plaintive sighs. When winter came and blasts did sigh, And bare were plain and tree, As he for ease in bed did lie His soul seemed with the free, He died so quietly.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife: Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art: I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

It is dynamic positioning that Allows a semi-submersible the Ability to hover there over The well. It is a thirty-six inch tube, A casing, that extends down to allow The drill and bit to be rotated there; The drill then spudding in; the seafloor, dark, And giving way. It is a thick column Of drilling mud that keeps natural gas And oil beneath the seafloor while the well Is capped and it is a cement that Fills in the casing so the drill pipe stays Unmoving, stable, in this ever moving sea. It is a sort of drilling mud that is Then pumped through the drill pipe and out through The drill bit then up through the casing and Then back up to the oil rig in the space Between the drill pipe and the inner wall. It is a blowout preventer, a series of valves That seal off the excessive pressure should The wellhead kick then blowout. There are all These variables. Various valves. Pressures. Buoyancies. Mixes of cements. Currents. Claims. Humans. Bow spring. Top plug. Shoe track. Floatshoe. I could go on and on here calling the New muses of innovation, common Vocabulary, that covers over the Elaborate simplicity of this, This well, Macondo well, was drilled by Deepwater Horizon and it went through Five thousand feet, through the abyssal zones, The epipelagic with its sunlight The mesopelagic with its twilight The bathypelagic with its midnight Then where the sea meets floor, the deep ocean, A blowout preventer there with the fish, The darker fish, the large detritevars That feed on the drizzle of the moulted Exoskeletons, the carnivores, snipe eels Big lantern fish, and zooplankton, corals. This well then went on reaching for the oil Another thirteen thousand feet. When it hits The pay zone, down through it, down deeper, deep. This well, Macondo well, was exploratory. This story then begins with other wells, But I will tell the story of This Well: In April twenty ten, the setting south And east of Louisiana's long coast. It begins with a round of tests, some done And some avoided. An environmental Impact and blowout plan declared to be Not necessary. Drilling easy. Then On April twenty, bled off five barrels Of fluid, reduced drill pressure. No flow. At noon, a drill pipe goes in hole so as To begin mud displacement. Seawater Then pumped in to displace mud. Kill line Not bled. It goes on like this. Partial lab Results, a circulation pressure that Did not yet match the modeling results And yet cement job pumped. Fluid returns Observed. Bottom plug ruptured. Still the Cement is pumped so it bumps top wiper plug At twelve thirty. Then two pressure tests. The drill pipe run in hole to eight thousand And three hundred and sixty seven feet. So mud displacement starts, the seawater Is pumped, then the spacer, then the fresh Water. The kill line opened and pressure then Decreased. Drill pipe pressure increased. The kill line shut in. Mud offloading done. It goes on. Drill pipe pressure. Kill line open. Then drill pipe pressure high again. Then sea- Water is pumped. Kill line full. Kill line Opened, bled to mini trip tank. Flow Is stopped. Kill line monitored. It Is then open. No flow. Considered A good test. Blowout preventer open- Ed, seawater then pumped down the drill Pipe to displace the mud and spacer from The riser. It is nine o'clock. The flow Out from the well increased. Trip tank then Emptied. Then fluids discharged overboard. Pumps Restarted. Drill pipe pressure on constant Increase. It goes on like this. Pump number Two started. Pressure spike. Then pumps two, three, And four are shut down. Pump one still online. Then pumps three, four restarted. Pressure build- Ing, pump two. Pumps shut down. First pump three, four, Then one. Then drill pipe pressure fluctuates. Increases. Then decreases. Then again Increases. Then held briefly, then again Decreases. A repair begins. At some Moment hydrocarbons enter the bot- Tom of the well undetected and rise Inside the wellbore, growing quickly as They meet the lower pressure of the sur- Face, heavy drill mud, other fluids, sea- Water, all pushed by the rising and Expanding gases followed by more, By high pressure oil, gases, other flu- Ids, all there rising, swelling in The wellbore, all there, pushing from the Reservoir. It is almost at ten O'clock when mud begins its overflow- Ing of the line and then on the rig floor. It is almost at ten o'clock when mud Then shoots up through the derrick. It is almost At ten o'clock, diverter shut so that The gas and drilling fluid could be routed To the baffle plates, the poorboy degass- Er, then the lower annual prev- Enter is activated. The drill press- Ure, the volumes of gases, fluids, drill- Ing mud, seawater, then is steadily in- Creasing. And it begins again. Or be- Gins some more. First as mud. A mud that roar- Ing, rained. Then the gas as it discharge- Ing, hissing, the poorboy degasser fill- Ing. Next the first gas alarm then the oth- Ers. It was then almost close to ten o' Clock, still when next a roaring noise, a vib- Ration, engines began rapid increase- Ing as also the drill pipe pressure rap- Idly increasing as the rig then los- Ing power, shut down processes then fail- Ing. First explosion on five seconds aft- Er. Then explosion again, ten sec- Onds later. It was not yet ten O'clock when the mayday call was first made. The Deepwater Horizon gutted stem To stern. What happens next ends with eleven Dead. The rig tethered still to the deepwell. The shrapnel. The lightbulbs then popping. The Heat. Hot fireballs. The lifeboats smoke filled ovens. Some lifeboats left, not yet full. Those left Behind then jumped in to oil-covered, Still water and so swam away. Some died: Jason Anderson. Bubba Burkeen. Shane M. Roshto. Donald Clark. Wyatt Kemp. Karl Dale Kleppinger. Gordon Lewis Jones. Keith Blair Manuel. Dewey Revette. Adam Weise. Stephen Ray Curtis. I will not tell You their lives, their loves, their young children, their Relationship to oil. Our oil. The well Exploded. They then died. Some swam away. Some floated away in boats. Donald Vidrine, Curt Kuchta, Jimmy Wayne Harrell. I did Not die. I watched it then burn on a Flat screen. Anthony Brian Hayward, Steven L. Newman, David Lesar watched. And Susan Birnbaum too, watching.

I talk to the orchids on my kitchen Counter most days—ask forgiveness of them— Understand they are lost and far from home And alone in alien soil with smells Of meat in their stamens and dogs barking And timers going off—I do my best To make my world a jungle where they grow Their pale flowers and die warm in the steam Coming off kettles and dinner plates. I can’t look at anything anymore Without seeing the bones under the skin— The lips of the ventriloquist moving— The hunger in everything wants out— Held hostage to the coming bite— I place the fallen brown petals in the unmarked Grave of my poem where no one can disturb The mad flowers of the exiled king.

For days to situate the flesh in whose inadequate precinct motionless: a monolith of the often spoken of which nothing is certain: or abstract of whose gender to the use of all acknowledged desire formal parlance & pronoun to form the stars across your back: whose hardened muscle: tremendous lateral delta of which to the shoulders: there is a way from yes: the very inside an eternal tick of the left eye: a language not only illegible as the vain translation of a fictive contradictory self & its consonant verb to be: but the body’s crystal falling through a grey film of failed memory & brushfire this Autumn midnight: to unfold (in the form of your body) pleasured corners of a place in which the difficult new breathing and I are foreigners

There will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart, The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust. A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest corner of it. The trigger and the range-finder, they too will be rusty. And no hands will polish the gun, and it will hang on the wall. Forefingers and thumbs will point casually toward it. It will be spoken among half-forgotten, whished-to-be-forgotten things. They will tell the spider: Go on, you're doing good work.

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee from the hill-top looking down; The heifer that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it pleases not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky; — He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. The delicate shells lay on the shore; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore, With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid, As 'mid the virgin train she stayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; — The gay enchantment was undone, A gentle wife, but fairy none. Then I said, "I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth:" — As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burrs; I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; Over me soared the eternal sky, Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird; — Beauty through my senses stole; I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

1 Who does me this I whistle off brazen as the green of the Palestinian flag Strange wishful little books clot my fur I do not labor except to season my domain Through seven holes all things twitter I reject the disjecta of allegory A sluttery roller skate grips my shoe 2 Is there enough chaos in you to make a world? The feather on the egg is the horse under the bed The New England winter is still raw and long The summer is intense and abandoned

Each day as dawn approaches, the King sits in majesty and blesses the holy creatures: To you, my creatures, I speak, before you I declare— Creatures who bear the throne of my glory with all your heart, and willingly with your soul— Blessed is the hour of your creation, and exalted is the constellation beneath which I gave you form. May the light of that morning continue to shine when you came into my mind— for you are a vessel of my desire prepared and perfected on that day. Be silent, creatures of my making, so I might hear my children pray.

Please! Keep reading me Blake because you’re going to make me the greatest poet of all time Keep smoothing the stones in the driveway let me fry an egg on your ass & I’ll pick up the mail. I feel your absence in the morning & imagine your instant mouth let me move in with you— Travelling wrapping your limbs on my back I grow man woman Child I see wild wild wild Keep letting the day be massive Unlicensed Oh please have my child I’m a little controlling Prose has some Magic. Morgan had a whore in her lap. You Big fisherman I love my Friends. I want to lean my everything with you make home for your hubris I want to read the words you circld over and over again A slow skunk walking across the road Yellow, just kind of pausing picked up the warm laundry. I just saw a coyote tippy tippy tippy I didn’t tell you about the creature with hair long hair, it was hit by cars on the highway Again and again. It had long grey hair It must’ve been a dog; it could’ve been Ours. Everyone loses their friends. I couldn’t tell anyone about this sight. Each defeat Is sweet.