A Bar at the Folies Bergre

"A BAR AT THE FOLIES BERGERE"

Excessively naturalistic

Roger Fry

Unbridled pleasure seems undemocratic

especially if it's stamped with royal cachet.

Some say the long-lost past was aristocratic

(time, too, has its fashions of the day).

Does history contradict itself? Well then, it does.

Rose-petaled faces smile in pantomime

like lovers shaking with each other's news.

Deaf women run about like ordinary fools.

The pure-in-heart applaud from Paradise.

And the very rich behind their opera glasses

watch the night tremble over the pit, then rise

with the moon above the naked masses

writhing under the chandelier

like drunken carp in a pond.

The barmaid is lapis lazuli;

her eyes, two wet, black stones.

O dark excesses! Unnatural love!

Cold weather's necessities!

St. Anselm's silly proof!

Frock-coated dolphins mock the sea.

Ladies, take off your pearly dresses!

Here comes the serpent again.

The forbidden tree is heavy

with fruit and surrounded by hungry men.

Beware the dog beneath the skin.

At the end nature takes out

even the language it put in.

Black holes are hot and shut.

I, too, wear black, mourning my life.

The moon circles my eyes.

All night the artists orbit in grooves,

then perish like meteorites.