Nude Descending a Staircase - Marcel Duchamp
For Mike Alexander
The obvious
question no one ever asks
is why descend a staircase in the nude?
Giorgione’s
Sleeping Venus
calmly basks
within a green Arcadian dream imbued
with golden light; while Sandro’s
Aphrodite
drifts shore-wards in a coy pubescent pose.
A classicist myself, I shun the sprightly
preferring nudes depicted in repose;
although an antelope in flight looks sleek,
not so the human. In truth, athletic
heroes ‘a la Greque’ who proudly streak
towards the winning post, seem unaesthetic -
We note a slight anatomical failure:
God-like physique but boyish genitalia.
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