Lessons we should have learned from disaster movies

Pride will get you nowhere
whether it’s tall buildings
or big ships, dirigibles
or cities

it can all turn to dust

“but you keep building
them higher,” fireman McQueen
tells architect Newman

even the bible (the greatest
disaster story of all)
spoke against

the hubris of mortals
reaching the heavens

as God crushed
the Tower of Babel

the Greeks had
Icarus and his waxwings

Shakespeare his MacBeth

and there was still a race
for the highest steeple in Christendom

radio towers competing with birds

a stack of offices
like building blocks

“There’s one place
I’m worried about,” say engineer Heston
to policeman Kennedy

“We never should’ve
gone so high.”