Canned Cantos

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Canned Cantos

Behold the simple can of soup.
Outside it’s hard. Inside it’s goop.
Cream of mushroom, turkey noodle—
kids adore the whole kaboodle.

Crass men raid the chicken coop
to gather poultry for our soup.
They chop up onions, slice potatoes,
murder mushrooms, slay tomatoes.

Must Warhol then immortalize
this canned concoction I despise?
The world agreed. He must. He should.
They called his canned art very good.

Yet this icon that he chose
to paint and to overexpose,
I could easily view myself
lined up on my kitchen shelf.

Why pay a thousand bucks or more
for something that each day I pour
into a pan and then ingest?
I think, friends, that it was a test

to see how gullible we are.
As we made this elf a star,
fanned his fame, increased his rank,
he laughed his way right to the bank.

For dVerse Poets Andy Warhol prompt.

28 thoughts on “Canned Cantos”

    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      I wanted to allude to “The Emperor’s New Clothes” but seemed a mixed metaphor so I resisted the impulse. Can’t use it with Trump, either, because the idea of viewing him without clothes is too revolting.

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  8. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

    Sorry for that..Hate to put that image in anyone’s head and now I’ve done it twice. Earlier this year I did a blog on a nude sculpture someone had done of him. Again, funny but revolting. I was reviled for not honoring the office of president. I answered that he was the one who has disgraced it.

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  9. Victoria C. Slotto's avatarVictoria C. Slotto

    Just love the humor in this and the wonderful flow of rhyme and meter. Poor Andy hated Cambell’s Soup because as a sickly child his mother forced it on him so often. I think there was a bit of sarcasm in this work…not to mention a ton of $$$.

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  10. sarahsouthwest's avatarsarahsouthwest

    Cream of potato? Really?

    There was always something of the con about Warhol’s art. Was he commenting on the gulliblity of the art world or exploiting it?
    Anyhow, I like the rhythm and rhyme in this poem, flows nicely, never forced.

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      I had to use Cream of Potato. It was the only soup can printed in English. i don’t know how it got there. a housesitter must have purchased it and left it along with the onion soup and several other flavors I would never buy. I only buy cream of mushroom and cream of chicken to use in recipes..I’ve never opened a can of Campbell’s soup for any other reason.

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