Degenerate Art

“Deeply agitated, he began to destroy the pieces that he himself owned. He shattered his woodblocks and burned his paintings. On June 11th, 1938 he committed suicide.” - Degenerate Art (television documentary, 1993)

A vision yet unloved by all
may one day find its home:
the strange imagination of the damned.
They gather in this place,
the old cathedral of a faith
incomprehensible, with naves, arcades
and cloisters leading no place but
the night. Silent and pale, the priests
of this religion roam, the rites they speak
peculiar to each and every one,
hoping perhaps naively that
the forge created by their thoughts
will bring consideration to another facet of
the light that animates all animals.

Let’s tarry here, and pray. Or simply watch
the ghosts about their nightly task:
making that which is useless
yet without which the night’s machines
would win, and burn the feeling out of us,
the little bird made ash to dip a finger in
and smear across the tomb
of our lost race.