SHEIKH DOWN... (My poem about downtown Dubai & the less fortunate workers...)

 Sheikh Down…

(Dubai, 2005…)

They lived in tubes,

Cuboid elevators,

Barely apartments.

Each compressed the one below,

So that one could imagine

People hunched,

Surely bunched

Under rotating ceiling-fans,

Which sliced at stale air

In doom-like cubes,

Spiked by TV aerials and angled white satellite 

dishes…

Fire-practice tower blocks,

Pages of newsprint taped

Vertically,

Nominally,

As curtains.

An anomaly…

Washing dried on tiny balconies,

Lines of linen and clothing draped

Carelessly,

Dully

As jumble.

An apology…

Opportunism and intrusion gaped

At the street,

Thus vertical bars

 Rose to enclose,

To protect,

To distract,

To detract

From what was home.

And the inhabitants became

Inmates.

But nobody escaped

The incongruous  aerials and intrusive satellite 

dishes…

Pete Ray

Dubai homes of workers, on the streets near the cheaper shopping areas. 

Upsetting really and in such contrast to the sprawling homes of those vasty more fortunate…