“Let the future excel the past”

(motto of the Municipal Council of Sydney,1936)

Above Clarence street, knife-edge

buildings tempt the suicide in us all.

Brutal planes of high-rise mock

a flattened Pyrmont,sandstone cliffs

quarried out, fading images

of Pirrama’s bubbling spring

Smoke-stacks of Pyrmont B

abut the river, heavy industry’s

four-fingered salute to ahard-bitten

CBD.Silver and the Lone Ranger

gallop endlessly on surfaces

against a sky rinsed pale in winter light

Pyrmont’s AC/DC fuels the city’s hunger

for power, Star Casino rising

from its ashes – “Sydney’s Viagra”,

crowed its CEO.High rollers

getting higher on sic-bo

and chuck-a-luck and Grand Hazard

But the city flows two ways, still,

alternating past and future – the bones

of offices long gone imprint their auras,

windows archive the shapes of buildings,

a ghost tour of rooftops andbridges sliding

into the slipstream of a winter’s day

- after Looking West from the Roof, 204 Clarence Street, 1986, Jeff Rigby

© Louise Wakeling