When I tread beneath
The uniform windows
Of that Layered City,
Admiring how their
Unsettling symmetry
Was like a spectacle of
Some Playmobil empire,
I saw the clever frames
High enough to blur
Faces,
The plastic towers
Built to shelter
Real life disgraces.
Blending in and sticking out
In all the wrong dimensions,
The lonely windows are
Pinned to an open sky
Like the wide-set eyes
Of a monolithic giant
And are too compliant
Too hollow
To shelter real life.
If only they could lean
A little closer
But the state built slab
Is a strange beast.
Each high-rise home
Then appeared to me
As another reprise of
Synthesised cohersion,
A structured perversion;
As office pews
At lunch hour,
Or the vacuous space
In a barren bookcase;
Colourless and imposing.
And though pinned above me
Those alloted window panes
Strapped to the narrow frames
Of a faceless foundation,
Seemed to be the concrete
Illustration
Of an obligation to Nation,
I hear
‘There is much more,
on the inside’
Excellent metaphor – I like your use of a cityscape.
It’s been a while. Good to read you again.
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Hi Chris! Thank you for your valuable feedback. It has certainly been too long!
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