Pause For Poetry:
Michael Hawkes /100

Manufactured Landscapes

A poem by Michael Hawkes

April 16, 2026

Ed Burtynsky has a vision
of beauty in the foul and grim.
Artistically admiring wreckage
not judging it as crime or sin.

Monochromes of ravaged landscapes,
wide-angle shots of open sores,
panoramic devastation,
telephoto-ed distant wars.

Amazing scenes of startling beauty
with no moral implication,
accepting man’s destructive nature
as an aspect of creation.

It may take a lofty overview
for one not to be upset
by the apparent damage that we do,
and yet,

the manufactured gew-jaws
that we kill to get,
the false idols and the icons
and the toys we soon forget

have resulted in this dreadful beauty
and encourage both the right and duty
to excavate the world we see
and ignore the mounting debt.

14/03/24 – Hawkes

Feature image: Potash ponds in the Moab – by Matt Arellano, Pexels

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