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How dare you!
Sandro the runt.
What makes you think that you know me that well?
You, not even a seed of a seed of the seed
When I rose magnificent
From the god seeded foam at Paphos.

I am the divine message of beauty
I am love in its awesome mystery
I am beyond your most seductive dreams, mortal!

That goat Praxiteles started it
Drooling daily over his strumpet Phryne
Eager hands moving faster and faster
Desecrating my pure reputation
With each chip and jerk of his craftsman’s tools
But at least he sculpted my image
To be worshipped. Fashioned robes falling from my
Waist, whilst trembling at the knees as he touched me.
What is your excuse?

How dare you!
Botticelli little barrel
Who is she, this deformed muse model?
What promises did you make her in my name?
Warn your little tramp of Myrrha’s fate.
Pervert I would never pose like that.

My hair gleams fairer than frosted starlight
My skin translucent, my body perfect.
My whole being radiates the essence of beauty

But you have made me ginga to the world
Neck as long as a goose, that woman has
Misshapen slut, her shoulders slope away
Her left arm hinges curiously bent.
At least Praxiteles made me the stature
Of a goddess. Made me more than mortal
You chose to balance me on a cockle
Mathematically ridiculed
A naked three-inch Thumbelina
What is your excuse?

How dare you!
Gold beater Battigello
What gives you the right to parade my body thus?
Fancy yourself as Renaissance man - shock
your public with my nudity - turn
my chastity into your sinful lust.

Dear Anchises revered my pearly skin
My beloved Adonis adored my nakedness
Enraptured Paris awarded me the apple

How dare you choose that moment to freeze for all time
Before the covering of my flowered cloak
For all posterity to view my body
Venus pudica – your artistic cover
Modesty - don’t make me laugh. You spent a week
Brush stroking my breasts, touching up my crutch
Soft pornography before hands and hair
were painted to hide my eroticism.
Coward, hide your lewd painting out of sight
away from Savonarola’s bonfires
on Lorenzo de Medici’s tawdry walls
well hung. Thanks to your pagan male lust now
my nude form must titillate for centuries.

I am the divine message of beauty
I am love in all its awesome mystery
But you reduce me to an object of male desire

And you think, after what you have done,
I would wear that painted smile for you?
You have a lot to answer womankind for
Sandro the runt
How dare you!

© Anne Lovejoy, November 2007