NAPHTHA MAQAM
0:00
Smoke
Breathe in, breathe out smoke
Choke hold, no need to breathe
Weigh down my jaw’s obsidian
Gossamer corset grip my chin
Breathe in, breathe out smoke
Where am I? When is now?
When’ll you quit this comic opera?
Coda to your mad agenda?
Blink again, you’re still here
I’m bored of your forever
Kept up, I cry for this all over
Cos I’m made to die over and over
Cos I’m made to die over and over
***
4:07
Limestone. A fine crystalline light grey limestone, porous with holes filled with sticky, / Breathe in / bituminous oil. / Breathe out / Dazzled by such dreams, we kept following the mirage. Now it has proved but a mirage of the desert. That is the worst of oil. It is rich, it makes a man rich, but it is liquid, apt to run away.
Where am I? When is now?
When’ll you quit this comic opera?
In addition to the Persian regions we already lease, / Where am I? / in Mesopotamia there is a geological extension of that field, / When is now? / which makes it almost the most important oilfield in the world / When’ll you quit this comic opera? / A new heaven and a new earth. He can see nothing and hear nothing and smell nothing and taste nothing but oil. It is extraordinary, it is delightful, the way in which virtue always seems to blend with interest in the policy of British Imperialism.
***
7:56
Sunset
Sulphur dioxide warhead
Smoke plumes feel cosmic
Sick pink sun in eternal sky
They’re playing God, I’m incandescent
Look the other way leave me dumbfounded
Silt veils everything veiled in grit
Soil’ll grow nothing you’re breathing ash in
Limp swallow clipped wings halo my head in
Can’t tell if I’m thrown up, eclipsed or sunlit
Scorch the earth for tactics
Set alight in hysterics
***
16:56
Because we are accused of exploiting a mandate for the purpose of developing, to our exclusive benefit, certain / Oil is of dark colour, thick liquid and of disagreeable smell. In some springs, gases can be seen to rise; the large marshes or morasses filled with sulphury mud deserve mention. / and it is a dangerous thing to talk about. It is dangerous to suggest that we are attempting to remain in this country for its / Out of this depression numberless small flames rise which disappear and are constantly relighting one another. / it causes our good faith to be assailed throughout the world. We do not want to stop in Mesopotamia for any oil that is in Mesopotamia. / At night they form a sea of flame of a most imposing aspect. These gases consisting of Hydrocarbogen become ignited only after reaching the surface. The flames have a height of 4 - 5 centimetres and burn without any smoke.
***
24:30
Geologically Mesopotamia must be considered a purely marine plain whose age is the recent tertiary. The tectonic structure is very simple; low mountain ridges run in several chains through the great alluvial plain. These mountain ranges consist in their main body of sandstone - brown and red in colour which can be rubbed into a powder. The surface expression of the Kirkuk structure is a long, narrow, anticlinal fold in which Lower Fars is exposed along three quarters the total length of the axis. The main limestone structure of the Kirkuk field is also long and narrow, consisting of three distinct domes, separated by fairly deep saddles across which however there is fluid connection. 10km to the north of Kirkuk, where the western spurs of the Shwan Mountain Range flatten out in the plain of the Khaza River there lie the naphtha deposits of Mesopotamia which are best known and present the greatest geological interest. This place is called Baba Gurgur Bitumen Producer, and was known to the most ancient writers. / We live in a country with plenty of coal and no oil. Whether you like it or not we have arrived at the age of oil.
***
26:07
Sun punished city
Crescent shimmering
Face to ground, beg this fever
“Baba break me free!”
Tongue tied bad deal
Lines drawn kismet forged
Cut loose throw away
Hot city swathed gold
A heady breeze parts a blaze
God’s pity lights my cigarette
Overturn this crazy promise
No one made
Don’t forgive but slip away
Truth is, leaving burns harder
Look again: my heart enflamed
Burns wild, beats fast, this love will last
***
35:42
I cry for this all over
I’ll let you in on something sorry
Damn, I lose every time
Nasty mouth, make me a promise
Oh yes, sell a lie
Show me a false god
Black gold
You break my heart every night
You’ve everything to play for
Rival on every drag
I never knew what could have been
You look so much dirtier
Sigh, stay back
Foul rebel, spit it out
***
38:41
Vital national necessity, if only because we are the great maritime Power. We do not produce enough of it for ourselves. I am very reluctant to see anything done which would endanger our obtaining of it from this region. / You know God isn’t listening? / I do not care under what system we keep it, whether it is by perpetual lease or whatever it may be / D’you hear the ground laughing? / The agreement provides for permanent British control. The companies shall remain British registered, a majority of the directors shall be British-born British Subjects and no change in the directorate, no sale of assets, no change in their Articles of Association shall be made without approval of a Nominee of His Majesty’s Government. / D’you hear the ground laughing? D’you feel like surrendering?
***
44:55
Can you feel when the ground
Quakes beneath your feet?
Mercurial land
Trembling beyond reach?
Doesn’t care what you mean
When you use words like sovereignty
Drawing lines that fade away
‘Cos you’re stood on a prize, a plague
You know God isn’t listening?
While it was attractive to stand just away from the worst of the roaring of the gusher and watch the spectacle of the oil being sprayed in billowy clouds to the ground, urgent and far-reaching measures were necessary. Hundreds of metres around everything was smothered in oil. Men were working in gas masks almost naked in an endeavour to get near enough to rig up some control appliances. The oil fell evenly in clouds all around the derrick and draw-works due to windless autumn days. Eventually, a terrible enemy had been vanquished and now, tied down and controlled, could be looked upon as our greatest friend.
This place defies authority
D’you hear the ground laughing?
D’you feel like surrendering?
No longer would we be regarded with the pitying eyes of those who looked upon our quest as hopeless, no longer would we writhe under the cynical comments of those offered to wager they would drink all the oil found in Iraq. Our heads were up, we had done a good job, we knew it and were already thinking of the way out to the world for Iraq oil.
***
51:20
I’m conflagration
Longing for conflation
Planes of matter
Lie flush against me
No sky above a ground
Mercy, may I breathe?
No spoils
No horizon, d’you see?
Don’t frown, look at me
Dig where there’s no deep
I’m begging you
Sepulchre me, sepulchre me
END