Cusp & Foil
Despite its very un-human appearance,
Brutalism is not of the Devil –
Hell is not open-plan nor split-level,
But rather refined in its elegance.
For Satan loves him a good bit of moulding,
And finds the Gothic suitably striking –
It’s churchiness is much to his liking,
With shadows and alcoves with secrets withholding.
He relishes how it is so un-chaste –
A messy farrago, where carvings cavort,
So clearly theatric, but not overwrought.
He’s rather old school in his decadent taste.
He champions all human endeavour,
He hungers for art, and lusts for pleasures,
Encouraging people to greater measures
Of genius accidentally clever.
Now God, he think, is a philistine,
And Jesus just sees a building as walls,
While Paul doesn’t care for the awe of St Paul’s –
They can’t see the passion within the divine.
The rage of the counter-Reformation
Is nothing but pigments on canvas, alas.
They hear no angelics within the Mass,
Nor thunder within a preacher’s oration.
But Satan knows humans are flesh and blood,
Like gargoyles hanging from rafters and nooks –
They may be grotesque, but we cherish their looks !
For Adam was formed from the dust and the mud.
But Heaven, he finds, is a Brutalist hell,
Raw and unfinished, with Puritan spartan
Enough to frown and hush and dishearten –
At least the Pit has some tales to tell.
The Pearly Gates are some steel-and-glass doors
In a weather-stained wall, not old, not new,
With nothing to say to those who pass through
To where ceilings hang low above beige-grey floors.
It makes good sense, though, that Hell with its fires
Has flames in its tracery, flickers of polychrome,
Bringing a warmth to Lucifer’s home –
For beauty is something that even the Devil requires.
Technically, both philistine and spartan are racist terms, but since the people who identified as such are no longer around as groups distinct from their neighbours, these are victimless crimes.
Rhyming Couplets 