William Bibby

  

  

  

  

   THE ARCHITECT'S SENTIMENT


  

  Those streets amidst the jiboulet,
Algerian shawls, polished brass displays,

when houses were kitchens alongside the quays;
orient their quoins and knees

arches and the wooden doors
that creaked like ships rubbing up against
their stays down by the harbour in Marseille.

He leans into his steel desk.
Corbusier re-invents narrow rooms to stay
or rent or work or live, where amongst the trees

families can stroll in an ideal land and seize
the triumphant logic of his dreams

enrolling one another in their lives, denying conflict
and its cause, forcing governments to pause.

See now branches shadow as the light obscures
buildings rising premature

emptiness fills his artists hands
horizons stand on end above the dock-lands.

Three o’clock comes and goes and is motionless.
The goose-neck cranes forlornly hang their heads
and the unsentimental boxes lose their confidence.