To the City of Hopes and Steel

We’ve left behind our bags of sorrow,
gliding forward to the City of Hopes,
to the City of Steel.

My uncle and I smile in awe,
elbows resting on the railing,
mesmerised by endless waters.
He looks at me and in his eyes I see
a twinkling of my father’s smile.
I take his hand in mine
and only feel like half an orphan.
Hours on end I spent drawing
the curves of the grand Green Lady, posing
with flames of freedom burning
and frozen still in thickets of metal.
Everywhere around, the sky
opened its halls for business, while
the ocean liner is rocking us ever more Westwards,
towards the City of Hopes,
towards the City of Steel.
Lullabied by the shifting Ocean,
we lose ourselves in dreams of grandeur.
But something’s happening...

We look around – the South
has flanked us with a stealth army of clouds
sneaking up on us like bandits.
And now our friend, the Ocean, swells,
and he swells proud, while a wall of water
lifts up our ship, and serves it raw
to the Hurricane.

Eastwards, back Eastwards we are flown,
on the mane of the Winds,
and the hours swirl in a hazy terror.
Eastwards, more Eastwards we do fly,
and the Ocean boils, waters cruel-green,
as dark and gloomy days go by.

...

At last we land on solid ground, we’re saved!
But, look! around us soar,
instead of Lady Liberty – Cathedrals,
and Jesuits praying,
and flocks of merchants selling maize,
and dusty shrubs, and reed-made rugs
hanged out to dry, and wells, and chimneys,
and the brown-gray tiles, and now
the Central Market, oh my Lord!
We’re back in bloody Gdansk!

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This poem is part of my book The Competitive Edge – A Collection of Poems

Read also: The Competitive Edge (title poem) | The Consumer | The Parsleyness of Being | To the City of Hopes and Steel | The Corridor | The Immigrant | Nine-to-fiving | Morning Skies | Into the Big Blue-Gray

My intro

image credits: @csbegu / Shutterstock