Here are the opening line of Thomas Moody's new poem “Construction Magnet.” The poem has a remarkable epigraph "(For who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? — Ecclesiastes 3:22). Please click here for the full poem as posted by the Journal of American Poetry.
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I try walking for profit…
Certainly progress follows me
Across oceans, through time zones, down dark alleys
Construction workers wait for me
Ready to form a guard-of-honor
On the boulevards facades drool over my aura of resurrection
Friday’s forgotten basilica is Sunday’s throbbing fitness centre
Into the squares and municipal buildings, history is not immune to my
magnetism!
Statues of great men launch themselves from bridges as I approach city
rivers
So I make my way down the Passage of the Comforters of the Sick
Past the Prince Lover’s Lane, onto the Keizersgracht and the famed canal
houses—
The centuries shed from their walls!
Amsterdam’s Golden Age is not safe
Even in Manhattan, the salivating murder of developers can’t keep pace
Billboards on the BQE project my face
“Having Trouble Getting Your Project Off the Ground?”
For six easy payments I’ll move in across the street. Call Now.
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