X - X

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X is always the hardest letter, especially for a poetic form.  So, this artwork was chosen not for an X as a title or subject of the artwork, but for the red X I see across the image.  It may not have been the artist's intent, although it would fit his theme.  So, no specific poetry form, some lines free verse, some rhymed, it's just a poem based on the red X. 

This is a print of Franz Marc's Fate of the Animals, painted in 1913, here renamed by the publisher, for an American market, as Animals at Bay.  The artist wrote on the back of the original canvas, "And all being is flaming, suffering," or "And all being is flaming sorrow."  Marc had a feeling of foreboding, a premonition of society's apocalyptic shattering.  He sensed the coming World War, and his painting depicts the price of human conflict on nature, the animals as innocent victims.  The dark portion of the painting was damaged a few years later, after the artist's death, in a warehouse fire.  Using photos, the artist Paul Klee, a friend of Marc's, restored it, but used brown tint to show an obvious difference, although it was never discovered why he did so.   I got this in the Goodwill Outlet bins, in a gallery, or museum, wrapping on cardboard.  This edition is from the 1960s. 

Tensions rise with the threat of war

political rumblings begin to roar

jagged twistings

cries of pain

blood flows freely

fires rage

societies shatter

societies fall

the first World War befell them all

©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

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