How History Works

Now that the Academy Awards are finally over, and the suspense of who will get the Oscar decided, the world can move on to other, weightier issues. In this vein, I give you the following from my favorite poet:

 

how history works

 

they raged against it,

that steel abomination,

that industrial phallus upthrust,

poised to rape the Parisian sky.

 

it was the artists and writers

who denounced it,

the aesthetes who wanted it pulled down.

 

and almost,

it was.

after the World’s Fair,

no longer needed

to celebrate the power of the Revolution,

the tower was promised to the scrap yard.

 

then someone said,

“well, we could put a radio antenna up there.”

 

p ferenczi