Without Music

"Without music life would be a mistake". Nietzsche

The Painter's Prayer

I came across this prayer recently and feel it merits attention despite its occasional reactionary lapses:

The Painter’s Prayer

From the tyranny of fashion
From the cutting edge
Lord save us
From social irony
From artist's statements
Lord spare us

From a thousand post graduate theses on aesthetics
Lord castrate them without anaesthetic
From art schools and academies
From the legions of instillationists
On a treadmill ever fatuous
Christ, you have suffered enough
Boil them in extreme unction

From the sycophants and explainers
The philosopher-critics and purveyors of novelty
Lord do not listen to the revisionists, let the fires of hell be real
Open the bowels of the earth and keep their anuses warm
With hot pokers over many centuries
Only grant this to me 0 lord
And I will endeavor to follow the truth.