Versus

This month’s championship games and playoffs:

The Star System vs. The Real Talent

Climate No Way vs. Climate Too True

The Queen’s Speech vs. Hooray Harry

The Gold Standard vs. The Widow’s Mite

Atheists 1 vs. Atheists 2

Lip Synch Fake News vs. Voices Real Time

Born To be White vs. Born To Be Not

All The Young Dudes vs. All The Old Dudes

Walk On Water vs. Sinking Feeling

He Him Himself vs. She Her Herself

Fire Last Time vs. Fire Next Time

Marvel Heroes vs. The Teddy Bears

The Right To Know vs. The Drive To Lie

Photograph: Detail from a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat in the current NGV show. Use of words, Spanish and English mainly, and particular individual words, is an essential element of his work. He has taken the graffitist's badging, the single word statement on city walls, and directed onto his painting, where they take on powerful meanings in the context of the individual work. Conflict, i.e. Versus, is fairly much in your face as a main subject in most of his art. It's hardline NYC but anyone can relate to his awareness of dispute being the air we breathe. The sonnet is a reading of this painting. Perhaps I should have broken the sonnet up into versus.