Friday 19 May 2017

Mackintosh in Ashes - Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow (18-19/10/16)

Smouldering in sunlight
Streaming through heat-shattered panes,
Mackintosh lies burning,
Wrought-iron roses withered
Upon the sill in mourning.
Hellfire reduced his work
To charcoal and clinker,
Iconic lights dripped from the ceiling,
Furniture fuelled the flames
Of a geometric bonfire.
The reality of the loss as one sifts
Through blackened timbers and trusses
Searching for survivors,
Is stark, painful, pathetic,
And phenomenal.
They cry for not a volume,
not a page, not a line remains
Of the tenants of tulipwood shelves,
Their souls scorched, their binding burnt,

Incinerated by an Art Nouveau Apocalypse.

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