| Friday, 01 May 2026 | Print
From the blows of hammers
rise stairways of terrible beauty.
Upon the iron body appears
the glistening face of hunger…
The cursed worker’s visible wound.
With fire-laden breath
they inhale the black water of carbon smoke;
and civilisation itself,
like a wheel of endless combustion,
enters the ruins of their fading lungs.
Burj Khalifa, the Clock Tower,
Merdeka 118, or Shanghai Tower
within the depths of every height
lie embedded piercing sweat, blood,
and the naked odour of death.
Through so much burning, so much erosion,
workers continue weaving cosmic dreams;
Yet beneath the bright glass of civilisation
Those dreams stand
like solitary winter trees,
leafless, exiled,
still rooted in invisible fire.
When night descends,
a black moon of smoke gathers inside their lungs,
while the illuminated towers
hang above the earth
like the cruel eyes of hawks
suspended in the emptiness of space.
No one sees
how from the deep marrow of workers’ bones
These stone minarets of civilisation slowly rise;
the brutal foundations of a merciless world,
a devastated history of endless emptiness
written in human blood.
Posted 1:49 pm | Friday, 01 May 2026
globalpoetandpoetry.com | Faruk Ahmed Roni
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