(No futurology. Cannot guarantee does not contain futurology)

B

16
What of the skyscrapers?
What contemptible hovels skyscrapers are when they no longer yield rents!
Rising so high, full of poverty? Touching the clouds, full of debt?

...

What of the bridges? The longest in the world, they now link
Scrapheap with scrapheap.

....

18
Gramophone records are still sold, not many of course
But what do they tell us, these cows who have not learned
To sing? What
Is the sense of these songs? What have they really
Been singing to us all these years long?
Why do we now dislike these once celebrated voices?
Why
Do these photos of cities no longer make the slightest impression on us?
Because word has gone round
That these people are bankrupt.

19
For their machines, it is said, lie in huge heaps (the biggest in the world)
And rust
Like the machines of the Old World (in smaller heaps).

20
World championships are still contested before a few spectators
                        who have absent mindedly stayed in their places:
Each time the strongest competitor
Stands no chance against the mysterious law
That drives people away from shops stocked to bursting.

BB