<span class='subtitle'>[title]</span><br /> <span class='texttitle'>Industrial Strength</span><br /> <span class='subtitle'>the seduction of destruction</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 1 oasis]<br /> In a forest of tangled metal, squares of cool blue glass<br /> compose a parallelogram of order and reason </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 2 connect]<br /> The careful precision of machined parts<br /> joints creaking as they finally fail<br /> </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 3 abandon]<br /> structural elements, reduced to <span class="texttitle"> idleness</span><br /> flatten and ornament this deindustrialization<br /> </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 4 marooned]<br /> Reduced to destruction porn <br /> industrial shipwrecks dot the meadowlands <br /> a constructivist’s dream gone south<br /> <span class="textfont">[scene 5 corrode]<br /> rusted beams and tangled wires<br /> of the old industrial outpost <br /> <span class="texttitle">unfurl</span> like sculpture</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 6 traced] <br /> heaps of metal, crumbling masonry, mirror image of construction<br /> project patterns intricate as Indonesian paper puppets<br /> <span class="textfont">[scene 7 project] <br /> daylight sneaks in through tears in the corrugated skin <br /> <span class="texttitle">louvered lines</span> paint the concrete floor<br /> <span class="textfont">[scene 8 awe] <br /> the vaulted space is a cathedral<br /> of entropy and disintegration</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 9 frame]<br /> a skewed parallelogram of fading light<br /> inches imperceptibly to the right<br /> incremental baby steps in a<br /> <span class="texttitle">stop-motion </span>animation</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 10 torn]<br /> silent now, except for creaking steel,<br /> the wind loosens a panel. <br /> that groans from lack of use</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 11 heaped] <br /> The explorer looking for signs of life <br /> has to be a <span class="texttitle">miniaturist<br /></span> reading the tea leaves in a pile of debris<br /> </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 12 embossed] <br /> Remnants of industrial revolution dynamism<br /> imprinted here in enormous scale and vast space<br /> </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 13 darken] <br /> It is always <span class="texttitle">twilight</span> here<br /> blue shadows, dull gray steel, dull brick and tinted glass<br /> </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 14 somber] <br /> The effect is melancholic, and elegaic<br /> puritan in its severity and uncompromising in retreat</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 15 banal] <br /> Bits of new construction seem dead already<br /> boxy brick warehouses of no noticable style</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 16 bland] <br /> They choose <span class="texttitle">anonimity</span>, rejecting heroics<br /> for cost-conscious and practical utiltiarianism </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 17 modest] <br /> no time wasted on metaphor<br /> they are structures that know their limits</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 18 ordinary] <br /> a <span class="texttitle">vernacular</span> of ordinariness celebrated<br /> in awkward proportions and synthetic materials</span> <span class="textfont">[scene 19 despoiled]<br /> Scattered across a <span class="texttitle">ravaged</span> field<br /> they litter the landscape, poignant in their isolation </span> <span class="textfont">[scene 20 fate]<br /> diamond bright lights wink on the horizon<br /> their light partially illuminating this post-industrial moonscape<br /> </span>