Bretch (1935), “Questions of a Worker who Reads Wikipedia”

Posted by anarcholatina on 2023-06-25

Who built Thebes of the Seven Gates?
All articles name the names of kings; I gather the kings
brought those boulders on their royal backs?
And great Babylon, who fell and fell again,
Who put'er back together, every time? In which flats
of gold-paved Lima lived the road-pavers?
The night the Great Wall of China was finished, where did
the construction crew hang out? Awesome Rome
is full of triumphal archs.  Who arched them up? Also—
who did the Caesars triumph over? We sing the palaces
    of Byzantium—
the whole thing was just palaces? Even Atlantis of tall tales
shouted, choking, as the seas swallowed it whole—

for its slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
All by himself then?
Caesar defeated the Gauls.
Did he bring along a cook at least?
Felipe de España, el Prudente, cried when his Armada
sunk into the sea.  And nobody else cried that day?
In the Seven Years' War, Federico Secondo grasped
victory.  Who else grasped it with him?
All these pages, all these conquests.
All those feasts—who did the dishes?
Every ten years a new Great Man.
Who covered the budget?
So many headlines.
So many questions.

Filed under Poetry

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