Drill, baby, drill—
strange words,
a chant from a strange man
in a strange world.
Forests burn,
their ancient voices
smothered in smoke.
Seas swell,
lapping at the bones of
drowned cities.
The air thickens,
heavy with the weight of loss.
And yet the President speaks,
as if the earth were not already broken,
as if the fire were not already here.
A voice of denial,
slick with crude promises,
slick with something darker.
He smiles,
as though the earth were endless,
as though the air were not heavy
with the weight of a thousand unheard warnings.
Drill , baby, drill—
fuel for the engines,
fuel for the empire,
fuel for the end.
A strange hopium,
sweet and sickening,
whispered into ears too weary to resist.
But the wind remembers.
The oceans remember.
The earth groans beneath
each hollow pledge,
each drilling rig,
each hand raised in defiance of the storm.
He builds babels of oil,
shadows stretching
across scorched plains.
He laughs,
and somewhere,
ice falls,
rivers vanish,
and the sky weeps
for what was lost.
Drill, baby, drill!
Again and again,
as if the earth will not break,
as if the children will not choke,
as if tomorrow is promised.
- Swales, 2025
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