Gentrification
Remember when hell was a thing?
You could look it up in Dante, or better still
in a history book
you could extrapolate
from The Geneva Convention.
Remind me
the tell you the story of the middle manager
who unironically,
referred to himself
as “money-rich-but-time-poor”.
Of course, there is absolutely for that, no need
to conceive of fires
seven times hotter than any flame;
there is no need for an eternity of bitter food
or leftover dreams, misunderstanding,
secrets, cracks that language can never cover up,
there is no need for rust and ruin,
silently defeating things;
or days so cold, they feel like disliking a friend.
One afternoon, one vapour-thought,
like you cannot stay here,
and there is nowhere else to go.
Constantin Preda is a London based Romanian poet. His most recent work has appeared in Ambit, Poetry Scotland, Lighthouse, and Structo among others. He translates from Romanian, focusing on Nichita Stănescu and Mircea Cărtărescu, and also writes about art for various journals.