I saw a smokestack jutting out
from a tin roof behind high walls
topped with barbed wire, belching
ink-black clouds that swirled
across a grey sky weighed down
with the low rumble of rain.
Here was a middle finger
cast from iron, pointed skyward,
goading wind and water both
with endless waves of poison
to beat it down to rubble,
yet they never could.
Here was a slow burn
unto itself, made self-sustaining
by an unseen fuel that drives it
despite the growing signs of wear:
rust on the metal, creaking gates,
hairline cracks on the concrete
growing wider every year.
Here was a ruin
awaiting the work of other hands
to strip it clean, and hammerheads
to tear into its rebar, pipes, and tiles,
yet still it hides behind its distance,
its faded signs, its old facade,
away from outside eyes.
I saw myself one evening
standing in a rooftop bar – drink
in one hand, cigarette in another –
mouth unglued after silence,
and nonsense, like sickness
sealed in a box, escaped in puffs
with the sultry wind, drifting
out into cityscape.
John Oliver Ladaga hails from Iligan City but is currently based in Davao, and hopes to teach writing classes for a living one day.