Déja
Do you remember when a piece of art
Held truth or meaning in its oil or stone—
And beauty even? Paintings would impart
Aesthetic truth and not just some sweet tone
Of glowing like a Rothko, luminous
But void like Close Encounters of the Third
Kind’s shimmer. Artefacts were numinous
Like stained glass windows, like Brâncuși’s Bird
In Space, and Magritte’s The Empire of Light.
The saints had haloes. Angels held wide wings.
A guide could point out truth. Then we had blight
Of dribbled paint and such vacuous things.
..An artist blobs gesso on canvas. He
….Thinks that it’s a painting. Stooopidity.