Hampton's Gold

There are artefacts beyond imagining, built from old tin cans and tacks

In dusty garages and derelict warehouses

And overdue storage lots

I see such wonderful things

Plinths, pulpits, plaques comprised of silver foil and broken table legs

Empty jars and bits of cars and boxes hoist the altars up to God

Ciphered dogma, wingéd visages, prophecies made of planks

Shimmering crowns of crinkled cardboard, topped with bottle cap jewels

Dispensations and Revelations written in hieroglyphs

He offered them all to Christ

And in the centre a golden throne, fit for King of the Jews

Atop its ornate weave of junk, two words “FEAR NOT”

People come to gawk and stare and share murmured thoughts

Of what inference of stuff and parts and things unravels this modest miracle

Or is it Warhol? A modern magnum opus?

Or did he labour fourteen years, each sooty bit of schmutz lifting him closer to Third Heaven?

And when Saint James was martyred his soul did soar not rot

And Gabriel doted on his deeds and said

‘Fear not, fear not, fear not’

In 1964 the landlord of a storage garage in Washington D.C opened the locker of the late James Hampton, a janitor who had recently died of stomach cancer. Inside he found Hampton's life’s work: a dazzling array of Judeo-Christian religious relics built from discarded items that Hampton had salvaged from the streets of D.C.