Flyweight Glory

The era in which every scrap of magma separating from the painter
   or the sculptor is gathered up
carefully reproduced
and accompanied by a dithyrambic text
is nearing its end.
The artist of this era sacrifices divine solitude
for a flyweight glory.
He keeps a suite of courtiers, jugglers, publicity agents around him
and they sing his praises,
leap for joy before his paintings or sculptures,
and spread about his flashes of wit, his bons mots.
The vigorously signed decompositions
the soiled tablecloths stretched on frames,
the snot sculptures of this era of flyweight glory
seem to come from another star
than the windows and rosettes of the cathedral of Chartres.

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