There you have it, Art is Culture, so we’re cultured head to toe,
For our ads do bring us learning sealed to Michael Angelo;
Thus, though Mike had certain knowledge of the human form divine
Did he know, like Fleischman’s artist, how the viscera entwine?
Why, we wonder, did our grandsires not all perish of neurosis
When their atmosphere was fetid with the stench of halitosis?
Were our grandames half as lovely, deeming beauty but skin-deep,
As our debutantes who’re conscious they have two such skins to keep?
Had they dandruff, athlete’s tootsies, or the imperfection fell
Which, because they fear a rival, e’en their closest friends won’t tell?
Had they — echo Rabellaisian — downy duckling, kitten’s chin?
Or — but here we draw the limit, lest obscenities begin!
If it’s Art, it must be Culture, and by standards of today
It is Art’s supreme expression for it never fails to pay;
And, whate’er you have to offer, or whatever wish to buy,
If you hope to make a profit, you must catch the public eye.
Be it beauty or potatoes, motor-cars or sin or health,
When you prostitute an artist they will net you fame and wealth;
He may have some higher yearnings, but what poet-painter’s dream
Ever paid like pictured hokum for the perfect beauty cream?
So, we grant it, we are cultured; though we’d often like to be
Back among the uncouth daubers who adorned the Medici;
True, they had no lithesome bathers advertising “Fitem Tite,”
But they worked because they loved it, building beauty as a rite.
(Burnett A. Ward)
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Based on Topics: Art Poems, Money & Wealth Poems, Curiosity Poems, Perfection Poems, Health Poems, Custom & Convention PoemsBased on Keywords: ads, imperfection, athlete, grandsires, angelo, fetid, duckling, bathers, advertising, medici, dandruff