Lucas Almássy
Collected Poems | Summer 2026
Crowns
The tops of a tall building
Different than the lower parts
More detailed
more articulated
Crenulated subdivisions
Arches, circles, and ovals
If a building is a mountain
the facade a cliff
then the top floor
is a settlement of hunters
Tents and cave dwellings
Given the highest of dignity
Inverting the class structure
Up above, like a trophy.
The first is last
And the last is first
The highest floor
Is the owners perch
Observing the city below
Checking who’s next
But those below look up
To the top floor
A symbol of their aspiration
One day, they will live there too
Columns
Round and Tapering
Like a person
Holding up the weight
Knowing just where to touch
Staying skinny
To let others pass
Often the architect
Wishes it wouldn’t be there at all
But the lovers of the world
Gives the column its rightful place
Rusticated Base
Heavy is the ground floor
and solid it must be.
remembering back to a time
when a settler was upon new land
They found a bluff or a cliff
To build a top
Overseeing the valley
And using the stones that protrude
They built upon the rusticated base
That nature had provided
It seems backwards
To make the ground floor
seems so impenetrable
But this invites us To climb upwards
The closed base turns
into A great platform
By which the people
and the rest of the architecture
Sit with humble pride
steady and balanced
Entablature
The slight cantilever is a line
horizontal bands
projections outwards
like a table.
Like a person
shading their eyes
with their hands.
The house sees too.
Like a table
That stands proud
And extends its surface
Far past its legs
Fluted Profiles
Double up
and concatenate
Extend
The water drains
and drips
Black life grows
in the shadows
Arch
like a rainbow, a sunset,
the bending branch or the curving earth.
It’s making space
for the head to pass through
a moment
we can celebrate an opening.
The arch came from a lack of wood
A lack of length
But the art can use the smallest of pieces
With the right force.
Every stone,
Every voussoir
Doing its duty
To resist collapse
Column Capital
a transition from vertical to horizontal
ionic capital pure and simple
doric column looks like fabric on top or some kind of liquidity
corinthian the synthesis of architecture and nature
heading from something to vertical to something flat
a pancake in the middle.
The Ring
the neck to the body
like a hand
a palm facing upwards
ready to accept
the weight of responsibility