All Ways

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

The figure of the Real Man

       Standing there,     

Just a glimpse of him,–

           And we are in love. 

~ Ikkyū

 

Two Years Later                                              

The hollow eyes of shock remain                      

Electric sockets burnt out in the                       

     skull.                                                   

 

The beauty of man never disappears                

But drives a blue car through the parking log. 

 

 ~ Robert Creely

Eternal beauty, not eternal waits

Around a corner, always.  Plato thought

Males most ideal; the young ones offered gates,

Their eyes, to paired supernal beauty fraught

With muscles down below those lenses.  Boys

Looked best before the body hair on chest

And lower down reduced vanilla toys

To men.  For Greeks true beauty showed its blessed

Perfection exercising in the gym

Completely naked only, though, of course

To check for lack of fuzz.  This love was prim,

Supposedly, no lust; let’s not be coarse.

  But now Real Men are seen in all-male bars

    Or driving round in ogling, cruising cars.

~ Phillip Whidden