Sequential Sonnets on Beauty and Ugliness

Born in creation is beauty; He saw

Men compare to calm seas, women to soft

Valleys and rolling hills. The beastly jaws

Of Sin and Vice, however rude or sly,

Latched its dull self upon the sleeping sky

And thus dissolved cool blues into cold greys.

His people—young and fresh—began to cry.

Deep beneath Man’s conscience was a tempest,

And hidden within Mother’s breast, unrest.

The fiery lakes burned close to Earth’s crust

And He—whom beauty rose and Man he blest’d—

Sought to cleanse the land’s sins for it was Just.

So God made chaos to balance the Earth

And Ugly was made for Beauty’s worth.

Ev’r since the day the sky began to cry

And his hard ruling hand fell with such a

Power to desolate and leave to die

His most corrupt and beloved creations—

The heavenly laws of His land were, for

All ages, tied to the beating heart of

Satan’s leviathan; those pulses tore

The Earth in seven parts. Perhaps some Love

Could someday bridge the fissures created,

But Wisdom could never stretch the distance

Between the East and West. Man sedated

Lied unbeknownst of his existence,

Nor his past. The secrets of love and life

Were forever blurr’d by struggle and strife.

The state of Man was bleak; shaken to the core

And lead astray, their memories were lost

As they—for forty days and nights—were toss’d

Relentlessly over dark waves. Tears pour’d

As Man’s meek wooden ship was rock’d and sored

And all the passenger’s sunken eyes were glossed

With shame and defeat. Their will to live lost

To those Deathly desires from exhaust.

And so humanity’s mind became sick.

When lustrous eyes became filled with blood;

When vibrant lungs became filled with thick phlegm;

When nourished marrow became choleric;

When melancholy rushed course like a flood

Through the meandering veins of Man’s heart.

Their skin began to sink rotten with age.

Youthful complexions damned with dark shading.

White teeth quaked crooked in their yellow cages.

Their dying souls and frail frames were fading.

Frowns encrusted on their faces just waiting

Just waiting for the dying of the light.

In their hearts they lay siege, always raiding,

Against the tyranny of Man’s reason.

O Beauty! Why thou cycle like seasons?

Dost thou’st value increase from those unblessed

With proportion? From those whose looks are treason

To aesthetic law? Those with less

A prideful figure are always haunted

By life or blood: flaunted yet unwanted.

The grotesque spectacle is kept in mind

With no efforts to preserve its nature.

The bulging hump in Henry’s back is bind

Both to us—his viewers—and his stature,

Just as Hercules’ strength is outrageous

And we are forever in awe and fear.

O, how is the grotesque so contagious?

Our thirsting eyes devour all that’s near

And yet our pupils cannot pierce so deep

To the depths to dig for another’s soul.

Happy spirits may through a smile creep

But sorrows may burrow in slothful sleep.

Low Narcissus loved what could be displayed

But Beauty is found where shells are flayed.

So few like Aphrodite in her birth

Rose in ocean foams so chaste and charming.

Sweet darling she who wakes May Day morning

So swift to lock her supple neck with mirth

And flee to country coves; Her pleasures worth

A thousand suns so young and so warming

With no yonder skies of red or warning.

O, sleeping child walking on the earth

Whose gentle thoughts are sleepy flowing streams,

Why dost your idleness not preserve thee

Like a doll’s cheeks shining with brilliant beams,

Or the ancient limbs of a Redwood tree?

Hath time, the deft thief, stolen out your dreams?

Or was it woven and cut by those Weird Three?

So, it was morning

And she was young.

So sweet she sung

All morning long;

Her voice was strong

Just like the birds

Until her afternoon nap.

Her snores were long

Her legs grew longer:

She woke up almost two feet taller.

But her voice, her voice had changed!

“You are aging my dear,” her mother said.

At night she could hardly speak

At seventy-nine the voice is weak.

The masses clothe their naked villainy

Behind fine threads or jewels of precious gold.

But wicked virtues of nobility

Are measured by the laurels bought and sold.

The worthful sum of all great glories told

Must be a smattering of everything;

Although their rhetoric be clear and bold

As if from the voice came one angel sing.

Read white, not black and we are left with nothing.

Be not too shameful to open your lobes,

Lo, the tragedy of Macbeth let ring—

Devilish dastards adorned in rich robes,

To be king is to have your name immortal

But aren’t Men left bare on though Death’s portal?

Inside of us a voice cries “gluttony!”

And lo! Our appetites grow with eating.

Like rabid states, our thirst is for the seas

And all the world’s fruits are for our reaping.

Yet drink wines slow for they are gracious drops,

And with clear waters do not drink whole streams.

Plenty is the land’s fat with tall green crops

But overeat ye shall burst at the seams.

Yet who can tame Fate when there’s desire,

When at every crossroads we catch fire

By the devils hand upon our shoulder

Our wants and dreams beginning to smolder?

We hunger and thirst for justice and light,

But pale ugly forces lead us to blight.

From the same father’s hand they came:

The seven ugly siblings without a name

And his beloved and most famed—

The Mona Lisa: His smiling queen so fair.

How could it be that those so lame

Could share his pages and breathe that rarefied air?

In what worlds can they compare?

Tis true that she has the eyes of a Gorgon’s stare,

But those monster’s eyes petrify!

Perhaps the beauty is found in the art they wear.

Her odd shadings intensify

Those eyes like those grotesque faces terrify.

O, Wise Leonardo found the beauty

In ugly: Such is an artist’s duty.