and what should we make
of these babylonian towers that
loom with unnatural surety
over streets stamped into the earth and
trees planted in lonesome rows
?
of the crushing on the escalators
and on the trading floors
with silicon idols hovering and
the tetragrammaton of luxury brands flashing
to blot out the stars
?
of corporations and churches and
universities and slums and
sweating train carriages
?
of sewage in rivers and
bitumen hot plates and
pillars of smog that lead
nobody to noplace
?
of locked glass to hold the milk and
honey, for those who can afford it
and the pills of prophetic visions, for
those who cannot
?
of cafés and gastropubs and
dancehalls and protests and
sirens echoing within open mouths
?
who would be lord of this place, a place
metastasized across the face of the earth, a place
that steals and then blends and then
spits you out a changeling
?
only one who loves its constituent parts
here’s the secret: there is no such thing as
corporations or churches or universities or
slums or cafés or gastropubs or
dancehalls or protests
there is only your brother and your sister
a tumult of them, organised
in a thousand crazed geometries
a kaleidoscope of holy images
A. A. Kostas is a writer and poet who has been published most recently in Meanjin, The Clayjar Review, and The Rialto Books Review. He currently resides in Singapore. You can read more of his work on Substack: https://waymarkers.substack.com/
