METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART NEW YORK :
MODIGLIANI’S RECLINING NUDE
 

In 1917 Amedeo Modigliano
and Jeanne Hébuterne
invite each other to create this painting
in the space between them.

Though long dead
they go on inviting all who see it
into the space once only theirs.
Jeanne turns towards and turns away
Each third participant is partly at home
and partly turned away
by what was expressed
between Amedeo and Jeanne.

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART NEW YORK :
BRONZE OF A ROMAN RULER

Maybe art does not improve
with time or age
but loses its way?

Some 5th century BC
bronze and marble
has not been bettered

I’d bet – and argue
for the use of the term
better anyway.

Trebonianus Gallus.
a forgotten Roman emperor
from the mid third century is

nude, paunched, bald,
one and a half life size;
in bronze but not bronzed at fifty something.

Not a pretty sight and hardly an epiphany
though the man had front
and the sculptor was honest.

Everyone could see the spreading
un-athletic gut of the chief-exec
as he lost the plot or tried to hang on.

His eros-handles expanded.

Not only had he not been working out,
it was not working out.
He was neither god nor semi-god.

Apollo’s torso was one stereotype
But now the honest un-airbrushed
Trebonianus takes the cake.