Bad Actor in Two Sonnets (Forever Entangled)
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Bad acting doesn’t cut the mustard for
An audience; well, not for most. Brooke posed
With trumpet (fake) and chiton. What he wore
Was unimportant. Beauty so disposed
Him that the tunic didn’t matter. Still
All knew he wasn’t good at acting. When
It came to love, the man was quite a pill
To swallow. While he wrote to girls and men
He sometimes used the same words, letter to
This one, to that one, and another. Truth
Each letter might have been. If it were you
Receiving it, perhaps your guiltless youth
Might well have read his messages with hope,
But really Rupert had in mind a grope.
One letter to James Strachey took the cake.
Poor James had been in love with Brooke for years.
He made this plain as pain. His every ache
Of love for him he sent to Rupert. Tears
And loneliness were what he got in turn.
But then a letter Rupert sent him told him all
About the poet’s fucking of young Denham. Yearn
And yearn poor Strachey suffered. To appall
Him Brooke reported every detail of the night.
To Brooke the evening was adventure. He
Was out for conquest. Denham wanted quite
The most stupendous man in England. Glee
Is what they both got—touched with sadness, too.
That thing called love was not deployed for glue.
~ Phillip Whidden