Today’s New Verse News: BAD BREATH
by Dick Altman
Pump jacks at sunset near Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Climate-warming methane emissions rising faster than ever, study says. —The Washington Post headline, October 26, 2022
NASA said a methane plume about two miles (3.3 kilometers) long was detected southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oilfields in the world. —Barron’s, October 25, 2022
Northern New Mexico
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Pump jacks looked to me—as a child on the West Coast—like animated Tinker Toys—Half a century later— here on the high desert prairie— they terrify me—Cows wander and forage next to them—Hay grows in the same field—Backyards brim with them—Schools look out on them—Indian reservations dance with them—Oil and sister gas ops balloon the air with toxic methane wherever I look—Except I can’t see it— unless—over the next hill—a flame three-stories high—shatters the view— Drive through “jack country” and you’re afraid to breathe— afraid—in mid-summer—to run AC— afraid to hike ruins—because you never know when you’re going to run into “jack”—and all his bad friends—Sometimes—at a distance— they remind me of grazing buffalo— their humped backs—connected to bobbing heads—glaring down from bluffs—I know they’re machines—but unlike most— they exhale—and what they breathe out—you don’t want to be caught breathing in—unless of course—you want—over time— to be caught dead—New Mexico’s called “The Land of Enchantment”— I call it “The Land of Bad Breath”
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Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.