China rising

Narrow streets boil like beds of rice,
steam beneath the heavy breathing cranes
that pull like scrawny buffalo,
ankles deep in paddy fields,
to plough the scrapers through the sky

Beside these rearing giants
lines of washing hang from windows –
harnesses for family scraps,
bonds for blood and
poverty's warm smog

Clothes fan out like wings on tasty duck
to tempt the future’s tongue
for, soft, within this cruel exchange,
this trickery of old and new,
dark appetites unfold.
Cities rise to stun the eye with
hordes of shining temples
as man devours man
and then replaces gods