Towers Above The Clouds

Inspired by the towers rising up out of the LA fogs.

Towers Above the Clouds

To the drum of Mammon
vertical galley crews
dip their small white oars
in lattes.

Water-cooler sirens sing
to the whip-crack of sales
their Dow-bows parting
Math’s Sargasso Seas.

The mail-boy drools
in the I.T. pools
where wage-slaves sway
in the scan-thralls of Xerox.

Peer pressure sores
false grapple smiles
tight-cut lass sheathes
tic-tac-toe stilettos
taut hawser ties
in chain-gangways
where both the captains
and the capstans
shriek and fail.

Mist now shrouds the Main
as the towers drift on by
anchors dragging, scarring
Gaia’s blind and bleeding eye.

(c) 2013 Paul D E  Mitchell

Math is a pun on the numbers in economics but the capitalisation refers to the Math of Celtic Myth, brother of Don, a magician who could still both sea and sky but he could only thrive with his feet in the lap of a virgin. Must have been an inconvenient truth but the virgin here is Gaia herself.