PIRANESI'S HOUR

Art did us a favor
with Piranesi's hour
as master engraver
in his problematic era
along with Blake
and Goya
as these precursors flower
into a nineteenth century
of dramatic Romanticism
with its interior decoration
at a prismatic poetic creativity
amid charismatic emblems
from the ready altar
at art's edgy border covering
parts of an empty
shroud of gentility
as he accepts his star invitation
with the Order of Malta.