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Poem: West Edmonton Mall

Posted on September 27, 2011October 17, 2022 by David Barker

Imagine our world is dying.
Imagine survival depends on journeys
to distant suns settling strange planets
colonists voyaging for generations
whirling in cigar-shaped tubes
tribes of ten thousand adrift between
the stars. Now imagine these crafts
of our salvation are designed by
the Ghermezian brothers: worlds of
endless shopping salted by breaks
in water parks, wall-climbing,
water slides, roller coasters, kiddie
rides, bumper boats, pirate ships,
Omnimax, ice rink, mini-golf.
After a thousand years of play and after
settling into orbit around their prospective
home and after opening the hatch
and after stepping onto terra subpono,
how will our descendants, bloated on fun,
rise to the threats of an alien planet?

Interior of the West Edmonton Mall
Interior of the West Edmonton Mall

Download the complete collection of poems and accompanying photographs as a pdf book.

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