Modern Architecture

An article 
on modern architecture
laments how ugly 
it all is, compares and contrasts
Dubai and Singapore skylines
to the streets of ancient Italian
cities, mocks physics-defying towers
of steel and glass
set into city blocks worldwide
at nearly impossible angles and 
presents the street map of Paris
and a collage of pictures
of Roman aqueducts
as the perfection of human
spirit made real, weeps at how much
grace and soul we have pissed away
on such monstrosities, blames
every disease of our society
on the retreat from such classical norms —

and here I am
thinking of broken temples
in India and blown up mosques in Iraq;
of what Timbutu must have been
in its prime and how mounds 
across North America still undulate
in harmony with the landscape
wherever they have not been bulldozed;
thinking of six grandfathers dynamited 
for four presidents; 

I want to say a lot of things
about destruction and rebirth and
the relevance of the past to the present

and they all just come out at once
in words I can never fully mean
as to say them is
to condemn myself as well
but I must, I must:

fuck you, old Europe, old head,
no more than small peninsula of vast Asia,
skull cap above the head of Africa,
made rich by the long plunder of the Americas:

yield your time.