Michigan Theater

The Michigan Theater Staircase Detroit

THE MICHIGAN THEATER

“Endlessly, endlessly,
The definition of mortality
The image of the engine”
—George Oppen
“Image of the Engine”
New Collected Poems

The engine of images
It stops.
We cannot live without it.
I know that I can’t live without it.
Designed by architects C. W. Rapp 
and George Rapp of Chicago
the Michigan opening in 1925

Eighty-eight years later and
Its world is ending   
With his death..
The movie machine stares out,
Stares out
With all its eyes

Thru the glass
With the ripple in it, down the stairs
Which are dusty—The Michigan had a 
French Renaissance style known
"Rapp and Rapp Versailles"

Is there is someone
In the balcony?
Inside, once so beautiful.