That Old Shipwreck Scene Neither that rainstorm in the middle of the night Nor the brilliant sunlit day changes a thing The castaways are doomed Those well-fed victims clinging to a black raft Mounted on the wall in the Louvre Will float adrift forever waving at that distant ship Never to be rescued Yet never to eat nor starve And I say well fed because these are models Parisians with full bellies and not those Who at the moment depicted Had neither nibble nor sip for two weeks Always in torment much like a frozen ball Of worms or tangled marionettes smeared with tar Painted with bitumen a fake paint And their tipsy raft is lost upon choppy water Meringue on lemon pie not yet cut into wedges Never placed on the table with fork and cup of tea Just a raft of people who have perpetually Lost their boat and are fated to float till the end of time Last night’s rain will not quench their thirst None of the thousands who walk through the gallery May p...