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The cats are creatures of a liberal kind,
For on the laps of commie artists, you’ll find
Them. Coffee too you’ll find in their domain,
Not to drink so much as to maintain
Their fashion, always looking lovely, cool,
And to that end they will use any tool.
On weekends favorite haunts are costly pubs,
And Mondays saved for protests’ stark hubbub.
Their purpose has a wide and varied range,
From human rights to underwear exchange.
But cleanliness on walls is not preferred,
Gobbledygook and graffiti are called superb.
True artists fear to bash this nuisance now;
It’s not allowed to raise a sane eyebrow.
.
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Sarban Bhattacharya is a 22-year-old poet and classicist currently pursuing a master’s degree in English literature.
How would anyone even know that this “artwork” was vandalized?
Well put, Joseph. Sometimes art for art’s sake is a slogan applied too broadly. If I had a dog, and that dog threw up on my living-room rug, and I painted a picture of it, then I would likely be a wealthy man right now. So here’s my proposition: I’ll bring the ketchup, you bring the garlic paste, and together we’ll create some art for the ages.
Kip, here’s a true story. At a trendy art gallery here in New York, there was a show for “installation” art. That’s the putting together of various stuff (garbage, junk, found materials) in some haphazard manner.
One artist put together an “installation” of soiled Dixie cups partially filled with cold coffee dregs, cigarette butts, used napkins, bits of half-eaten food, and miscellaneous scraps of paper. This was his “work of art.”
When the gallery’s cleaning crew came in that night after the opening show, they assumed that this “installation” was just the leftover detritus of the gathering of persons who had seen the show. They swept it all up with their brooms, and put it out with the trash.
The artist was infuriated, and the gallery was deeply embarrassed. They had to pay him off handsomely for destroying his work. But apparently they were not at all embarrassed to present pure garbage to the public. That’s how low the modern art world has sunk.
Interesting miscellany of what the liberal artist likes and does. I would change line 12 to begin with “Graffiti and gobbledygook” and make the rhythm more regular, but your raised eyeBROW at the end of the poem is wonderful rhythmic touch suggesting the motion it describes, at least for anyone who normally hears and says EYEbrow.