Poem Therapy at 11:30 A.M. October 28, 2010 - Peter Spagnuolo

Hatra Apollo


Interpol 22019-1.7: The Head of the Hatra Apollo
Peter Spagnuolo

Missing from the National Museum, Baghdad, April 2003

No light can gild the sun god’s cheek but strains
through burlap now, Phoibos the refugee,
his head a marble cabbage in a sack
jouncing east by pickup down a dirt track
across Seleucid wastes, Parthian plains,
once more fortune’s tourist, bobbing free.
Or not—just stashed behind a rubbish mound
where bare-boned goats might crop a scraggy meal,
scant miles from the museum’s shattered room.
Stripped of laurels, his oracles, his loom
of sacred strings, no Horai here spin round,
just pacing men who wait to close the deal.
A goatherd sings, slings a Kalashnikov:
the godhead mute since looters hacked it off.

Artists are precious. Art is precious. Remember this.

Artists, visual, literary, etc., are our most precious resource. The art they create is all we have of them. All we have to remind of us, of who we once were, who we think we are, who we can become.

Art is precious, especially art curated for the express purpose of being exhibited in museums, (and the tricky thing about this is that some of the art in these museums were appropriated from occupied countries, but in a few instances the art has been returned to its home country, but let's save that for another rant).

Art is precious, but it is not a commodity to be traded on the market, any market, whether Wall Street or the proverbial black market.

I'm not talking about art in private collections, or about the artists that create paintings, sculptures, photographs, etc. Visit any gallery, or art festival, or innumerable venue and you'll see a wide variety of artists plying thier wares. artists should be paid,and well, for their work, for their energy and vision, their contribution to humanity, because all we have of the past is the art and archetecture, the literature, the thoughts of great men and women.

I watched the looting of the Iraq Museum, watched as theives walked out of the museum carrying thier booty. In the chaos no one stopped them. I finally turned off the news and swallowed a lie that the stolen pieces, some the only evidence of our shared ancient history, would be recovered. Someday.

To those who steal and desecrate and secret art away, you deserve Shakespeare and Psalm 58's venom: "A plague on both your houses." "O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD."

If you're interested in seeing all the art lost during the pillaging of the Iraq Museum, check out this link. (fyi: this will take you to the google page, so click on the first subject item to view the powerpoint presentation).

I think the photo of the museum worker embodies despair.