Bucolic Beauty

Not existing in and for itself,

beauty's purpose is to enthral, entice,

to stimulate and select (or reject)

a victim, ripe for joyful sacrifice.

For the bee, the glory of the meadow

represents a tableau full of nectar,

where other species dine together,

with lepidoptera and vile insecta.

In the poet's eye, the field becomes

a woman, whose delights are needlessly

elaborated by mythology:

cornflower eyes, poppy lips and such fancies.

Flora or Blodeuwedd lie spread before him,

invitingly humped in a summer bed,

while neglected in the milking shed sits

plump Lucy, wondering if he's lost his head.

Function and form amply displayed, Lucy

squeezes and pumps milk from swollen teats,

sweats and dreams of lusty swains, she hopes

will deliver her from lactating drains.

Poet and Lucy remain unsatisfied

because they are tied to dreams of love and

beauty all confused with work and duty.

So, discard pen and bucket and go to it.

But what conspiracy lies behind that art?

The dark glistening eyes, the downcast glance,

the bitten lip and blushing modesty that

transforms country tart to sweet Aphrodite.

Behind nature's arras squirms the culprit,

an uneasy chariot of ancient germs,

aided and abetted by the senses

retarded by the horses of the mind.

The arts of poetry and dance conspire

to hinder that inglorious conjunction,

that crux of irresistible desire

to join opposites in form and function.

Beguiled by sphere and dodecahedron,

Platonic aesthetes preferred completion;

they could not stand nature's unruly plan,

so inconsistent with the mind of man.

Incompleteness, then, is the mysterious key,

rather than proportion or symmetry.

Aristotle would have rather dined on slugs,

than sip nectar from Lucy's ovoid dugs.

The pelvic thrust of young Perseus, cast

by Cellini, was designed to excite

the lust of the Florentine pederast,

not ignite Aphrodite's sacred flame.

The fruit of Bacchus' lips proclaim too

Carravagio as lover of the pretty toy,

and Michelangelo's boy hero David

slayed more than Dan's tribal bugaboo.

Beauty, then, is the hidden mask of desire,

a lurking fire in a thousand places,

burning in each weeping eye, the traces

of some primaeval ire still not snuffed out.

But good taste is the sine qua non of art,

woe betide those who neglect the critic's part

in blocking the poet's tendency to employ

the squalid bits of nature's inventory.

To the youthful eye, the morning's pleasure

sounds no alarms of gravid pains to come,

but charms and adds value to a treasure

that may grow heavy with the setting sun.

And so as evening falls and our poet fails

to capture glowing tales of beauty,

garnered from his wordy fields of clover,

may chance to see Lucy bending over.

In a flash, the truth he sees, between

the nice proportions of her knees,

and glib theories of rhyme and metre are

cast aside like the curtain of love's theatre.

Stumbling forward with inarticulate cries,

he grasps the weary milkmaid round her thighs

unbuckles all his mental blocks, wails "fuck it!"

and falls headlong into Lucy's bucket.

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