I almost didn’t post this video:
A few months ago, my family and I went on a trip to Des Moines and took some time to hang out in an abandoned mall.
It was a blast from the past: a trip straight back to 1990 when I was roaming malls like this in a state of confused bliss while trying to buy happiness, one dollar at a time.
Dying or dead malls like this are liminal spaces, and documenting them has been a fun, personal side-project.
I had a video app (Rarevision VHS) installed on my phone, so I used it to dig into the look and feel of my memories by turning my cell phone’s 4k video into damaged, old VHS tapes.
I made the video for myself, and I almost didn’t share. I thought it was a little weird and out-of-the blue for my channel. I thought: this is just for me… no one else will care.
That voice asking, “what will people think?” is one I still fight. It’s stopped me from posting a lot more stuff than I want to admit.
But I pushed back the doubt and posted it anyway… because who knows? Sometimes, our most personal work is the stuff that resonates with others.
Then, months later, something cool happened.
My friend and fellow photographer, Jeanne Prucha, reached out to tell me she'd written an ekphrastic poem in response to the video. (I had to look that word up! Ekphrastic means “an artistic response to a work of art.”)
Here is her poem:
Consumption’s Specter
by Jeanne Prucha
An ekphrastic poem inspired by a video created in a dead mall by Jerred Zegelis
Consumption’s specter
sitting on a gaudy couch
clothed in a gemmed gown
sewn from orange dreams
now abandoned to stillness
like congealed lifeblood
pooled under mirrored
columns ossified by brick
stacks of soft money
minted to stuff its
stilled boarded-up mouth from which
some familiar dirge
drips static meant to
hypnotize with spells cast from
behind owl-eyed doors
hinged to vast chambers
of its bloodless and failing
arcade heart pumping
fuel to power
semitruck guts digesting
coins scraped from pockets
lined with captive trees
producing oxygen for
starving aqualungs
inhaling laughter
imprisoned in its ribcage
of fractured concrete
castles enchanted
by wasted space and plastic
illusions of joy
riding silver stairs
endlessly coursing through blue
neon veins of glass
panes tenebrous with
high speed decomposition
of stark retail cells
now leasing to the
murmured echo of its voice
screaming you are here.
WOW.
Jeanne - this is amazing.
It’s a single sentence poem, put together through a series of 5-7-5 syllable haiku stanzas.
I’m in awe.
Pay attention to the detail and visceral word choice.
The mall has a "bloodless and failing arcade heart." The indoor planters are "captive trees" feeding "starving aqualungs." The concrete is a ribcage, and the neon lights are veins.
The mall is a living organism, slowly dying and decomposing before our eyes.
Every time I read it, I find more layers. I keep asking myself: who am I in this place?
The ending: “you are here” has me standing at a mall directory, staring at the red dot to mark my presence in this liminal space.
There’s a lesson here: share your work.
It’s a video I almost didn’t publish, but now it’s become one of my all-time favorites, simply because Jeanne’s poem resonates with me and helped me to see this dead mall (and my place in within the decaying body) in an entirely new light.
Thank you for inspiring me, Jeanne!
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Oh - and this post is 100% AI-free. Every title, sentence, misspelling, and mistake is mine, and I love that.
DEATH TO THE ROBOTS.
Comments? Leave them below or email me: jerredz@gmail.com
Thank you for your very kind words, Jerred, and for finding this poem worthy of Megapixel Road. I am a complete amateur at writing poetry. Your video featured here is the second dead mall video of yours I had seen and they both left me with chills. In fact, both inspired in me all manner of thoughts, feelings, and judgements related to a myriad of layered topics raging from the personal to the societal. Truthfully, I wrote this poem to help me sort it all out. Of note, there were so many stories and perspectives I was lacking when I wrote the poem. These perspectives include yours Jerred, those of the shoppers and users of the space, the business owners' (large and small), the employees' (former and current), the financiers', those of the community at large, and so on. I sincerely hope this space and the many like it around the country can once again become lively and active places and perhaps places dedicated to a greater good or need. And I really hope, if any or all of the building is ever torn down, they save the plants!
Thanks Jerred for inspiring me and making my old brain think. I look forward to more of your posts.