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Victorine

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“Wot you looking at?

I can sit ‘ere if I want -

This ain’t the bleedin’ Champs Elysees

an wot if I did take off me knickers

It’s an hot day innit

An’ anyhow ‘e made me put me knee up

to hide me parts

They’re all talk anyhow these philosophers

they don’t reckon us girls -

(I can paint tooy’know)

’an ’course we’re impressed

anyone who can talk for an hour

and still say nowt must know “quelque chose”

as they say….

. But what is it?

What’s ‘e on about now –

I bet it’s that ‘Amour Libre’ again -

will it keep the kids in sabots,

a roof over us,

the boche out of Paris?

As for me mate –

‘er first bath for a week I recken -

though why she keeps that chemie on

nobody knows; they’ve all seen it before –

But I wonder which one d’ye think she wants.

I bet it’s that Manet feller

‘E done that picture of me like a tart

when he made me cover me bits

an even then the toffs di’nt like it

– well would they – it showed them up.

An’ this one’s called -“Dejeuner sur l’herbe”

– What a picnic!

◄ To the New Year

Mick Burke (Everest 1980) ►

Comments

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Mon 31st Dec 2018 19:49

An absolute bonus for tonight, and the accent is ingenious. I'll probably still be smiling hours from now.

<Deleted User> (18118)

Sun 30th Dec 2018 16:33

If a painting could speak.
Captured forever,
Brilliant.

Hannah

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Alan Travis Braddock

Sun 30th Dec 2018 13:48

Thanks Kate. I always wonder what the models think of the finished paintings. Victorine Meurant was the model for this (as well as a lot of others including the - at the time - notorious 'Modern Olympia'.). And she also was a painter.
I gave her a cockney accent, which was perhaps unfair because I think she was quite a sophisticated lady.

<Deleted User> (19913)

Sun 30th Dec 2018 12:32

Delightful and colourful, like a Manet Alan. I love Dejeuner sur l’herbe”, it must have caused quite a stir in its time. Happy New Year!

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