Pity The Beautiful Poem by gershon hepner

PITY THE BEAUTIFUL


Pity the beautiful, said Dana Gioia,
beauty is truth, but it cannot survive
any more than the truth, because age, its destroyer,
abuses it while it attempts to stay live,
for it can't survive any more than what's isn't
as lovely, and what isn't fair won't engender
the envy of those who by it aren't imprisoned,
and free of all beauty to it feel less tender
than those who're attracted to what, for the present,
survives in its glory to dazzle the eyes,
not caring that whatever is evanescent
will hardly be beautiful after it dies.

Inspired by a poem by Dan Gioia:

PITY THE BEAUTIFUL

Pity the beautiful,
the dolls and the dishes,
the babes with big daddies
granting their wishes.

Pity the pretty boys,
the hunks, and Apollos,
the golden lads whom
success always follows.

The hotties, the knock-outs,
the tens out of ten,
the drop-dead gorgeous,
the great leading men.

Pity the faded.
the bloated, the blowy,
the paunchy Adonis,
whose luck's gone lousy.

Pity the gods,
no longer divine.
Pity the night
the stars lose their shine.

Linda's comment to my poem:

SUPERMODEL IN 2 DIMENSIONS

Pity the supermodel
who tall and sinuous
insinuates herself
into our house.


Pity the friendships
competitive, catlike,
unlike our house cat's
conditional love

which is love, unquestioned,
while she, without nine
lives, depends on our homelife
to whine for a home.

LRH
sorry, I meant to comment on your poem but this came out!
xxxxx

Dana Gioia responded thus when I told him how much I regretted not being published: :

Perhaps you shouldn't worry about publication. You write as an expression of your mind and imagination-a way of being more fully alive. That may be the real point of your prolific poetry. Write and collect them. Then years later pick a few to revise into public poems.

5/6/12 #10,091