Let the crane take back the engine
Let the crane take back the wheel
And I feel that the world should come with me
When I ride to the crack in the earth...
--Trip Shakespeare, The Crane

I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. --Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck Why is it then we stray Around the sunken sill? They are all gone away, And our poor fancy-play For them is wasted skill: There is nothing more to say. There is ruin and decay In the House on the Hill: They are all gone away, There is nothing more to say. --Edwin A. Robinson, House on the Hill

Oh, but it is dirty! -- this little filling station, oil-soaked, oil-permeated to a disturbing, over all black translucency. Be careful with that match! Father wears a dirty, oil-soaked monkey suit that cuts him under the arms, and several sons assist him (it's a family filling station), all quite thoroughly dirty. Do they live in the station? It has a cement porch behind the pumps, and on it a set of crushed and grease - impregnated wickerwork; on the wicker sofa a dirty dog, quite comfy. --Elizabeth Bishop, Filling Station

Ruin Have they knives? Om Ah Hum -- Have they sharp metal wood to shove in eye ear ass? Om Ah Hum & slowly reclined on the pavement, struggling to keep my woolen bag of poetry address calendar & Leary-lawyer notes hung from my shoulder dragged in my neat orlon shirt over the crossbar of a broken metal door dragged slowly onto the fire-soiled floor an abandoned store, laundry candy counter 1929 -- now a mess of papers & pillows & plastic car seat covers cracked cockroach-corpsed ground -- --Allen Ginsberg, Mugging Ruin Dreams