STEVEN W. BAKER

Steve in the Holy Louvre

(written in Paris, France)

OK, here I am in the famous Louvre Museum

I finally made it. After all the hype

After all those French classes

So long ago, lost in time.

I'm looking at the Mona Lisa

Staring her in the eye, and she in mine

In front of a bunch of Japanese tourists

Taking selfies with grinless faces.

My wife beside me is far prettier

Her smile of happiness so much warmer

We are finally together in Paris

So this very moment outshines art.

The Mona Lisa is so very small, tiny really

Especially compared to the monumental

Paintings and buildings around her

Or the black guard sitting impassive, bored.

I'm pretty bored by all the art myself

A small town boy from Indiana in the city

Though all of that is lost in time too

I have come around the world to here.

Watching people looking and reacting

Is more interesting, so I sit and watch

There is no excitement and I feel none either

This dead old stuff generates no hormones.

Nothing causes the oohh's and aahh's of a sunset

Or a rock concert blasting 125 decibels

And I am struck again by the powerlessness

Of art, how you could burn all these paintings,

Pulverize all these 3000-year-old statues

And life would not change one little bit

Our imaginations might be impoverished

But imagination can endure any loss.

I sit and think of questions to ask the attendants

"Where are the robots and rocket ships?"

"Is there anything not so old and dark?"

"Where do you keep the GOOD paintings?"

On the one hand, there is the magnificence

This artwork is housed in day and night and

The hand-carved frames gilded with gold leaf

On the other, the houseless and life without hope.

Where are the values art gives lip service to?

What is important in this life on this planet?

Must something be flat and old to be of value?

Or does life tell us it is art that is dead?

©2015 STEVEN W. BAKER

Steve in the Palace

at Versailles

(written in Paris, France)

Well, here we go again

(See "Steve in the Holy Louvre")

Holy crap! Versailles!

Gold leaf fucking EVERYWHERE!

Marble statues and gigantic paintings

Miles of gardens with fountains

The Sun King and Marie Antoinette

Napoleon on a bucking white horse

Halls filled with scenes of battle

And one little room for peace.

The excess does not make me say,

"Hey, good for them Frenchmen!

They really knew how to live!"

I don't find myself thinking, "How romantic!"

All the doings of the court and royals

Instead, make my stomach turn

From the blind decadence of it all

Ugly the crown and the clothes

Loathsome the stones sitting sadly

Lost the lessons of luxury and excess.

©2015 STEVEN W. BAKER

Steve Among

the Ruins of Rome

(written in Rome, Italy)

Here, time is made of stone

All else has turned to dust

And been blown down the river

By the breath of Zeus himself.

The lives and loves are gone

The great and the small passed away

And all that is left is but nothing

Though it hints at what can be.

It is here we say our last farewell

To return to the land that we know

What we take with us can't be seen

And when we are gone, the stones will remain.

©2015 STEVEN W. BAKER