Ah beautiful sky,
there are service areas in my
eyes are jeremiads against the state
a coat of shiny panels,
remembering you are
a major Blairite project
failed past the black fence
lies a green expanse
a no-man’s land
on a putative building site
you are now part of the post-boom years
its tortuous multilevel intersection
acquaintances are somewhat less.
Ah Beautiful sky,
petrifiable its coherent core
ally civic, but it’s the interior,
the actual use of the thing
that sets it apart
a short hill – office blocks
you now inside anti impositions
what goes inside the building
is so much less now
acquaintances are so much less
now no return pendulum just
zoned plant life,
cubic grey urban.
Ah beautiful sky,
the feeling of light, air
shuttering on the boom’s last word
rich in potential associations
housing is a Big Yellow Self-Storage
making them feel like
so much less past the black fence
lies a green expanse
a context-free Big Shed
on the edge of a motorway
you smile on the edge of a
a wire mesh being constructed
to preserve views outwards.
Ah, beautiful sky,
the face is the future data site
‘Zone 5 Strategy’ pulls inward
up a concrete core
in enfilade black steel laws
we have everything to live for
the walkway stretches
metal-clade tube of
a grim office its sick building
syndrome its air of hopelessness
covered in desperate cement
singeing cut budgets
streaming through industrial units.
Ah, beautiful sky,
a hill with car park lights
the aluminum balconies
stapled fields of dreams
here is the feeling
on cantilevered platforms
to view something like a glass atria
inside Big Yellow Self-Storage
big sheds spiraling plastic-clad
buildings shaped like a Rubik’s Cube
instantly recognizable
to anyone born there
a steel column with twinkling lights.
Ah, beautiful sky,
that can be controlled by text message
skylines that stay the same
dozens of pipes neon-lit
and topped by flares
sponsored by a benevolent corporation
but here, unlike the pigeon shit
walkways is the new industrial
Jobcentre towers;
Here is a series of looping cul-de-sacs
no local governments,
no aesthetics no democracy
twelve roads at once.
Ah beautiful sky,
dead time pinched and minuscule
‘It’s a nice place’ pieces of amenities fall out
sub-components break the enemies of enterprise
‘For customers’ use only’ signs
in McDonald’s and Wetherspoons
its air of hopelessness is aura
nevermind a flower
glass concave like a chest
Fenchurch Street someone said
Neo futurism London E3
during the public inquiry,
reflected sunlight brise soleil.
Ah beautiful sky,
to smash and singe fabric and doormat
our city allies peel away
nothing much left now
walking the husk perimeter
feeling the downdraught effect
as a sensation of hard vs soft
Takeoff feeling everybody feeling
like taking control floating like a
silver lining and what is
visible in the distance, an epiphanic view
lurid scarlet weightless, beatless with its cold
open air the surface of things.
Ah, beautiful sky,
a ring of sunflower lanyards
where everything is
extraordinarily dense
in the centre – especially at night,
when you can’t see
hypertrophied apartment blocks
you find that rolling feeling
that occasionally sublime effect
waiting on each little unit
in the light to be yours alone
and forever not Equity Sharing
not Contract Theory not.
Ah beautiful sky,
the relaxation of assumptions
pleading in a hole
making an argument
for this or that more meaningful
than before perverse incentives
a callback agency
costs like a default rule
there's a crack in the floor
like shibboleth in the Turbine hall
and eventually there will be a scar
and that's how it works
in glass and plastic houses.
