A Poem for fun by Christian Somerville

“Art I Like… and Some I Don’t”

A Dali comforts me
And a Monet, in its own way
Pollock too, if I’m in the mood
Van Gogh I know like a child knows its mother
(Though I still need to read what he wrote to his brother)

On Leonardo da Vinci, there’s no need to convince me.
He’s simply superb, though one time I heard
That when reading Dan Brown, Leo’s corpse turns around
And spins in its grave from conspiracies made
Not being clever or funny, but just made to make money.

This makes me quite sad, and it’s really too bad
That that movie did well – must we all go to hell?
Who knows, but we might if such things were as trite
As they sometimes appear as we sit and drink beer
By the glow of a tube as our wits it deludes.

I don’t want to imply that TV should die
(Nor do I think that no one should drink).
All I meant to say – in my roundabout way –
Is that what should we expect but a diluting effect
From a culture-spreading medium of the culture-dreading tedium?

It deludes and dilutes, so why shouldn’t we be brutes?
Life’s simpler that way, when you don’t know Manet
From Picasso, and I’m not sure that I know
What I’m saying anymore, but I wouldn’t visit the Sistine Chapel
Just to stare at the floor.