Seven Andy Warhol screen prints of Campbell soup cans
recently vanished from the walls of a museum in Missouri.
The masterpieces remain
missing.
Cat burglars run amok.
In galleries across the globe --
Amsterdam, Boston, Paris, Rotterdam,
to name a few --
Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, Gauguin.
Picasso, Van Gogh go
bye bye
right under guards’ noses.
In each heist the thieves were caught
but the art is still
AWOL.
The value of all purloined paintings rivals Warren Buffett’s net worth.
Information leading to their whereabouts or
return
brings a king's ransom.
This is Hide and Go Seek, big time.
*
We,
made in the image of God, are masterpieces, too,
right?
We hang around for a time.
People come in, go out,
look, judge, praise, pan, ignore.
Attention is hard won and fickle.
Only our true-blue steadfast comrade,
the Thief,
our BFF,
stays at our side year after year until invariably, inevitably,
bored with waiting
the brazen bastard jumps the moat, muzzles the Rottweiler,
disarms sentries, breaches walls to ransack our castles,
snatch small masterpieces, some still not dry;
grab old masters, beyond restoration
and spirit them away.
Don’t call the cops.
The Thief is known to me.
My heart visits the kever where his swag lays hidden.
Such beauty, joy, laughter and love
that no amount of coin can ever
bring back.
This is Finders Keepers Losers Weepers,
big time.
Ozzie Nogg © 2016
first appeared in Dive Into Poetry workshop hosted by Jena Swartz and Cigdem Kobu