Beauty and Truth

                Beauty and Truth

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

“I have never seen a man who loved virtue as much as he loved beauty.” ~ Confucius

Men love the truth . . . perhaps . . . if beautiful.

Saints love the beautiful if it is true.

Too often though men hate the dutiful.

Too often though the truth cannot cut through

The beauty that they love and so they see

The beauty. They stop there then. Beauty’s shape

Controls and if it does not quite agree

With truth, then truth is jettisoned.  The nape

Of neck with curls nestling soft against

The untouched skin exults and blinds the man.

The love of truth is instantly dispensed

With.  Lust is like a truthless Taliban.

  There’s little luscious in a lovely scene

    Consumed by truth, a venomous cuisine.

Phillip Whidden