Just a Natural Consequence of Their Design, Just Part of Their Natural Life Cycle
it is strange to watch four towers blow up
in the fog
playing peek-a-boo like they knew
like they wanted the local papers to say
OUR MONOLITHS REMAINED UNTAMED TILL THE LAST
or
IN TYPICAL FIDDLER’S FASHION, THEY ARE GOING OUT ON THEIR OWN TERMS
the skyline afterwards was much the same
as it had been for most of the morning
amateurs in the crowd asked questions
such as which ones? and where are they?
while standing directly in the pantomime line
and we shouted back behind you!
on Facebook, Carl begged the ether
rather late in the day
if the demolition could be cancelled
because he couldn’t see clearly
(the post was not reported)
a lady in a beret stood for three hours
in snow on the pavement by her tripod
far too far away to capture anything
I stared at the corner of a house
willing the hyberboloids to materialise
and darken, like a nude’s underwear
on a mug that changes colour in heat
a cooling tower cannot be embarrassed
but it can be annihilated
reduced to a worthy absence
a scar is the mark left when you destroy a thing
it is not the thing
a scar requires there to have been a removal
it exists in the after
it implies having missed, like Carl,
who stayed home in the end, the bulk of the action
as with any change of state, there is a pause
our legs spin
we have chosen unknowing
we have chosen the cliff
the clouds did not part
but they thinned
same as how nothing is ever complete
it was 9:36 when Eris pressed
the button a cable unsnapped
from the plastic block she was holding
like a gleeful hoover cord putting itself away
Eris has mixed emotions about winning the raffle
with the comforting landmark gone
how will she know when she’s home?
her son is sad
the view from his bedroom window is changing
Eris doesn’t mention her feelings post-initiation
she shares a video from her husband’s phone
as a child I had a recurring dream
about winning a raffle I wasn’t supposed to enter
and under the sudden storm clouds and hail
running away my father’s voice booming
like the crack of four towers coming down
the structure collapses like a thin chocolate shield
doused in hot liquid caramel
I put a chocolate ball like an oyster in my mouth
in the revolving restaurant where we would try to impress
the billionaire who eventually sacked us
and its form imploded
in one expensive second
this wasn’t a failure though
I’d played my role
the towers fold like soft forms in fire
like kites caught in trees
like the fresh moves of inflatable men at car dealerships
being fanned through the knees
like pylons collapsing
like parachutes on top of my body starved of wind
I want to watch the enormous shrink
photos of the four resultant chicken-pox stains
on the ground
make me gag
just dust now
we’re ghosts inhaling the insides of hoover bags
the material keeps coming
it will keep on coming
they are designed to collapse into their own pits
not to disturb anything
to pop in a footprint
this is a date, I said
and kissed your cheek
the fog was brown and orange like when the Sahara
comes and coats us
the pub was rammed
people were drinking Heineken in the street
Previously published in Anthropocene Journal