—a sonnet of differing with Keats
Behold this naked truth, and say not Beauty:
a body splayed, nailed cruelly to a tree,
spit upon, a jeering crowd, a crown
of thorns—blood stains and pain, not artistry.
Beauty may hold but cannot be this truth
of suffering, the mortal cross. Golgotha!
Fair Aphrodite serves not rules the truth of grief
and ecstasy. Let pipes and timbrels play,
maidens forever young on Grecian urns.
O Attic shape! fair attitude!—yes, gladness.
Bring forth angelic harps in exaltation!
Yet, refrain: beauty enthroned is madness.
Hope is beauty, beauty is hope, the light!
A lofty promise, the other side of night.
The poetry of Leland James has been published worldwide in over fifty journals and magazines, including The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Society of Classical Poets Journal, The South Carolina Review, New Millennium Writers, Vallum, Orbis, and Aesthetica, Leland was an International Publication Prize winner in the Atlanta Review poetry competition, winner of the Portland Pen Poetry Prize, and runners up for Society of Classical Poets, Fish International and the Welsh Poetry prizes. He received the Franklin-Christoph Merit Award for Poetry in 2008 He lives in a cabin in the woods in northern Michigan with his wife of 40 years. You may see more of his poetry at www.lelandjamespoet.com.
Featured Image: Tracing of an engraving of the Sosibios vase by John Keats
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“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
