A Circle Of Hell

A Circle Of Hell

By Gabrielle Blair

There is a place that I have seen,
Yes I have seen it, shamed I’ve been.
A filthy place of waste and slime,
With blue-black gashes in the grime.
Lurid colors, sulfurous yellow,
Moonscape dead, black-gold lies shallow.

Behold the tar sands, not long found,
Millennia formed, in surface ground.
The mighty, winding river’s oiled,
Athabasca’s streams by tailings soiled.
Tributaries, vein-like, split the land,
Effluence spewing, seeps through sand.

Monster machines’ great gaping maws
Devour the banks with chomping jaws.
Trucks waiting catch the feast disgorged,
Overflow dribbles, black stuff purged.
Trundling, trucks criss-cross grey mire,
Spired smoke-stacks belch demonic fire.

Behold the tar sands’ vista grand!
Raped, ruined, size of England.
Through power, greed, theft, some earned
Black-gold’s fortunes; who’s concerned?
Plundered, abandoned, stripped, unwell,
Left behind, a circle of hell.