Modern Art Poem by Mark Heathcote

Pablo Picasso,
Pablo Picasso could be an arsehole
he was characterised as a womaniser
he took many mistresses
they'd operate as his muse and lover
he was quoted as saying
'women are machines for suffering."
He was a misogynist of the highest order
he probably believed pointillism was only
for naked indigenous aboriginals;
he once said, "there are only two kinds of women:
Goddesses and doormats."

Pablo Picasso, Picasso, Picasso,
Pablo Picasso could be a right royal arsehole.
But didn't most of his art critics love his oils,
his bike saddle and handlebars - Bull with Horns
his cubists' breasts like great big pointing citadels
remind me of Madonna's iconic Jean Paul Gaultier Cone Bra.
What was their syllabus these bourgeois and upper-
class elite standing in front of his canvases?
Was it to further the diversity, the richness of modernist art?
Or to earn some huge commissions and line their already deep pockets
or-just-kiss his royal arse.

And what followed him, bloody Andy Warhol,
with tins of baked beans and Marilyn Monroe,
looking like Myra Hindley, devoid of sincerity and hope.
We then had the 1995 Turner Prize, winner
Hirst divided mother and calf: formaldehyde cows.
And later Gunther von Hagen the German anatomist
who subsequent exhibitions Body Worlds 2,3 and 4,
that's been viewed by some 24 million so-called art lovers.
Pablo Picasso, Picasso, Picasso,
Pablo Picasso could be a right royal arsehole
but at least I recognise his work
for something tangible worthy of being called modern art.
Not some nihilistic view that's not worth the price of
the toilet roll I flush down the loo.