Oil rose like a tide this week…
pulled first down by Iraq’s extra barrels,
then lifted by falling U.S. reserves,
Kurdish silence, and fire in Russian skies.

Sanctions, warnings, and bans
blew like storm winds across the market,
while faint whispers of weak demand
tried, but failed, to calm the waves.

For now, crude drifts on conflict’s current,
its course steered more by war and worry
than by the thirst of those who burn it.