November-December 2025
Portraits at the stock exchange
By Edgar Degas
In the shouting, there’s a whisper
In the buy-sell, a secret cue
Quick, pensively met news
With poker’s composure
By the flooded thoughts of a calculator
There is no chance for eyes to be kept
No stock placed in feeling warmth
No share in the wives’ dawn
No man here who has ever wept
Fewer still have even slept
But within the buy-sell syntax guild
An imposter lurks with a beige presence
This creeping remnant of collective adolescence
Even here, Aesthetic longs to be filled
No matter how clad seeks to kill it
Written 19/12/2024
In July - Before noon or The Orchard
By Théo van Rysselberghe
Far springy grass goes wide
Dives to long hedges of world
And stretches like cats in the Sun
It sprouts thin trees with pace between
And grows into many golden hues
In many shades from many views
In this space, we shall not spread
But stay together yet
Petting fine hobbies and conversation
Grass the sommelier of every breath
Written 9/09/2025
The Champagne Song
By Max Slevogt
Don’t look so close or my eyes might unfold
Might dry my performance, may drain out the light
Then where would we be but on sets that we painted
With leaves that are painted and swords that don’t slice
Sing with me the song of champagne
Raise it to their box where they sit
Give them a bow
Leave them laughing somehow
Give them the lyrics they know
For they won’t follow when I go
I keep all my costumes pristine in their places
Dust never touches their gilding, their gold
But when I step out to that flaming lime
All we can see is the staining they hold
The world where I live is thatched and it’s brushed
Rarely I see what lies over stage
When I am going, I’ll go out the back
Where fresh air is king and there’s no light on my face
Written 17/06/2025
Self-Portrait with brush
By Max Liebermann
Who is this who paints me?
Who stains my canvas with me
And traces the blood of my hand,
The grey cells on my brush?
If you would paint the self
Paint form first for
What else do you know?
Perhaps an ear?
Did I pose?
Did I suppose?
Do I oppose?
Am I done?
Three I have become
One, a messed man siphoning
Two, a caricature informing
Three, an id for you
Written 3/07/2025
Young Girl in a Ball Gown
By Berthe Morisot
All this bright primness
Just to be dimness
As he fell in the blue well, your eye
So fast your done hair
Undid his dumb stare
Wherein his surety writhes
For square on five minutes
He has been at gathering his
Thoughts and courage up to his breast
In so doing
He wonders why wooing
Never occurred until you wore this dress
So he’s worried he’s nearing
Superficial leering
A baseness balls mustn’t allow
And while his war rages
You’ve left all your cages
And his is just a face in your crowd
Written 4/09/2025
The Parade or Race Horses in Front of the Tribune
By William Merritt Chase
Have you seen the races,
The parade’s best day to be?
I saw them in the springtime
As they passed past me
I took some road that went by them
For two miles or three
But in the end, they went ahead
And left me to my feet
I came into the city then
The trees all gone for walls
The gutters running by the road
I knew these were my palls
I managed to the fence line
To see the race once more
While the hooves still shook the ground
I let my body fall
Written 28/10/2025
Camille Monet in the Garden at Argenteuil
By Claude Monet
The hews confuse our house,
The flowers, I mean,
And deem unnatural edifice for nature
But sung among this kaleidoscopic life
Is Claude Monet’s wife
Camille Monet
Written 5/01/2025