Still Life With Apple And Matisse

PLOP in the middle of an open book
(holding it open) perches a shiny shiny
Red Delicious apple. The book
(more picture than text) is blurry,
growing faint from the spinal pressure,
while the apple's all agloat
with precise highlights and garish streaks.

Oh, I know something about this book.
You were reading it earlier during lunch.
You kept saying, "Nonsense!" "What?"
I asked. "Art History, and it's total
nonsense! Here, listen to this...".

Well, we can all argue endlessly
with unhearing authors of books about art,
but isn't it more fun to paint the book
wide open on a table before a fancy vase

(whose portly face vaguely parallels
and vaunts the apple's sleek upsurge
from canvas, as if vase were gantry
to apple's rocket) and then, atop the book

(ganging up on Art History) paint a big
chrome-shiny apple that reflects everything,
clearly the painter's pet! O unfair! Unfair!
What chance has a one-sided volume
of Art History against an apple!

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002