Previously in Molly Bloom
  • Previously...
  • Molly Bloom 1980
  • Molly Bloom 2013
  • Molly Bloom 2
  • Molly Bloom 3
  • Molly Bloom 4
  • Molly Bloom 5
  • Molly Bloom 6
  • Molly Bloom 7
  • Molly Bloom 8
  • Molly Bloom 9
  • Molly Bloom 10
  • Molly Bloom 11
  • Molly Bloom 12
  • Molly Bloom 13
  • Molly Bloom 14
  • Molly Bloom 15
  • Molly Bloom 16
  • Molly Bloom 17
  • Molly Bloom 18
  • Molly Bloom 19
  • Molly Bloom 20
  • Molly Bloom 21
  • Molly Bloom 22
  • Molly Bloom 23
  • Molly Bloom 24
  • Molly Bloom now
  • Molly Zoom (live readings)

Aidan Semmens


THE VANISHING OF WORKERS' SETTLEMENT #3

down a winding path
in a shadowy scene
a woman and a man are pushing
a wagon loaded with industrial implements
 
you must guess at their concerns
which if any of the huddled huts
in the barely focused background
may be their homestead
 
or their place of work
whether the dog standing alone
in what might pass for a village street
is theirs or maybe a wolf
 
heavy with traditional symbolism
strayed from the vestigial forest
that crowds at the edges
vignetting the pastoral view
 
down winding paths the people
and the powerful fragment
a strategic actor looks for ways
to achieve goals of hegemony

the magnetic energy of acts of exchange
in the field of ideas and perception
under powerlines the elements of coercion
in that perpetual plebiscite of desires

the leaking of confidential documents
is carefully aimed ferocious and destructive
with few and precise preliminaries
disunity is easy to achieve
 
in ankle-deep snow through which
you might glimpse rails
a huddle of the elderly pushes a cart
that brings the weekly delivery

the village itself is barely more
than a row of wooden sheds
or barracks interspersed sparsely
with small garden plots
 
things have been falling apart
since the onset of modernity
fragmentation is the condition of knowledge
the extortion of desire extraction of obedience

from Petersburg to Trieste a different
model of the family pertains
clusters of matryoshki
in posters on the metro
 
many of the buildings
have collapsed into themselves
or been taken over by goats
and stray dogs treading eerie pathways
 
even against reprehensible authority
protest may shade into malice
revolt into viciousness levels of fertility
began to decline even before the revolution


Copyright Aidan Semmens 2013


also by Aidan Semmens: Fun; Corrupt Text
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.