Whale ropes to the sky [Adam Roberts]

So, after doing a bit of work this morning, I checked Facebook and saw that my buddy Adam Roberts had posted this:

Off dream: I had an unfamiliar laptop, and couldn't get the power cord to fit into its socket. I knew the device was almost out of power, and fumbled around with this wire. Eventually I gave up, opened the laptop and saw what I'd been writing: a poem. The only line of the poem I can remember from the dream is:

"The bombed city threw whale-ropes to the sky"

Then the screen went blank, and I knew I had lost whatever it was I had been writing. Particular type of anxiety dream.

I thought a bit and posted this reply:

Sounds like you're channeling STC. How's your laudanum supply holding out?

In Xanadu did Adam R
A sacred city rebuild.
Where mad cetaceans swam
Beneath the bombed walls
Tossing whale-ropes to the sky.

I thought some more, Shazaam! ChatGPT! I added this to my reply, courtesy of the good old Chatster:

When I asked Adam whether or not I could post his note along with my reply, he said:

Please do! I could say that, in the dream (so far as I remember it: the memory is already fading away) my understanding of "whale" was less cetecean and more an index of thickness: bombs resulting in fat, ascending pillars of smoke. But I accept that's not necessarily what the line itself suggests.