North Chattanooga

In view of the recent oil spill, I am reposting a poem I wrote several months ago.

North Chattanooga

Chicken wrap and fries
Six ninety-eight
All the lard you can eat
Fries clogging arteries
Of drivers as they clog
Traffic arteries burning
Oil and gas

Lawyers argue in Washington
Claiming their clients have
Already paid enough for
Letting a drunk run
Hard aground in
Prince William Sound
Oil polluting ocean water
Instead of Chattanooga Air
Where drivers burn oil
To get to Coolidge Park

A dragon kite flies mimicking
Fixed wing vultures though
The wooden slats give it a
Bat like appearance flying
Above pigeons and a gorgeous
Redhead throwing a Frisbee
Over her boyfriend’s Head
Beaning an innocent pigeon

The Park comes alive as lawyers
Prowl the sterile halls of justice
In Washington, stop to wash
And sanitize their hands
But can’t remove the oil
Of Prince William Sound as
It sticks to the money
In their wallets


They argue to limit damages
Paid to Alaskans twenty years
After the ship in the Sound
Ran aground killing herring
Killing the fishing economy
For twenty years as young men
Reach middle age and middle

Aged women reach retirement
But can’t sell their commercial
Fishing license with the economy
Gone to hell and who can tell
Them to switch to tourism
Since the oil killed the whale