Failure Poem by Frank Avon

Deserted or distanced
by friend and patron,
irritable and outspoken,
raging against his rivals,
the public and the System
(Sir Joshua Reynolds & Urizen) ,
a failure in his time:

his Exhibition
(works which now hang
in the most prestigious museums
in his English-speaking world,
while the works of his rivals
lie forgotten and unknown) :

what he foresaw, what he saw
evolving in his London
was the Age of the Machine,
of mass marketing and
a conforming public taste
of contempt for the Spiritual

what he also saw was the sun
not as a golden guinea
but a host of heavenly angels
crying, 'Holy, Holy, Holy
is the Lord God Almighty.'