Slum

increased consumption of a much loved and admired thinker
because of his love of architecture and modern cities
proves that ideas about where we should live and how
are at the heart of global questions

slums filled with
men and women who have chosen to stay at work because they
claim to adore their jobs
playing out a nervous and unconvincing love scene
a pair of fleeing convicts, chained ankle to ankle and hip to hip
by a kind of debilitating lust

at the heart of the thinker’s considerations,

how burdensome failures and disappointments
turn into victories
how the unique and mundane
travel hand in hand so often
in the modern world

how to reconcile it all
so that we can live with one another
no matter the overcrowding or how much our jobs
make us feel like prisoners
indentured to faceless masters
who would do well to curb our
natural appetites for love or at the minimum
real human contact