Junge Männer, a Sonnet Sequence
on the photographs in Herbert List’s Junge Männer
[Each sonnet is about at least one of the sonnets in List’s book. Before the title of each sonnet is the number of the photograph the poem is about, as in (#1). Often (or always) the sonnet has its own integrity; that is to say, it does not need the reader to see the photograph with it. Indeed, since ambiguity is the soul of poetry, perhaps the sonnets are better read without the reader looking at the photographs.]
(#1) Young Man
Disturbing every way, this photo jars.
Those thick-set ankles on the man are bad
And that would be enough. The hacks, the scars,
The wounds, the faults and fractures more than add
To our depression caused by so much harm
To classic sculpture. Ripped, the stallion’s haunch
Is torn by jagged crack right through the arm
Of stone that could not halt destruction’s launch.
Its harsh attack is registered across
The marble everywhere, in acne pock,
In shorn off handsomeness. Beauty is dross
Once time and accident have left their shock.
..And yet, and yet, some loveliness adheres.
….A timeless fortitude of strength coheres.
(#2)
Why List has placed a leaf-lined branch across
His eyes is not explained. The light in slant
Makes one black nostril prophesy some loss
Of life or love. How strange, because this plant
And sun supposedly imply that good
Will come his way, and maybe it is true
That death and end of sentiment will (should?)
Bring on beauty. He is not allowed two
Ears, since the lens prefers this profile. Still,
Both handsome lips are visible, the dark
One, caused by shadow, gives a frightened thrill
Lest he should speak the god Anubis’ bark.
The dent above this breastbone is the part
Eyes fix on. No one wants to see his heart.
(#3)
It’s hard to say just which makes more distress,
The rotted, broken marble columns or
Brute shadows, brutal gloss of sun, caress
Of lens on young male body set before
The temple light, the Doric pillars. Dark,
Too dark, the forearm propping up the squared
Dark edge of shoulder, bright, too bright the stark
Sun stain beside the breastbone and both aired
Beneath a rugged face and thick black hair.
Has olive oil been applied, or might
The harsh effect be nothing but the blare
Of lust like flashbulb from the camera’s blight?
..He’s posed on great stone blocks and looks away.
….He has the hulk of sacrificial prey.
(#4)
He holds a black stem, pinched in that right hand,
With five black leaves held just above, beside
The black hair trail arising like a brand
Of heat from pubis there and just outside
White bathing suit. It shows the only pure
White in the photograph, although his close
Cut head is tucked against a lovely, sure
Divinity of Greece with grandiose
Straight nose of near white marble. A finger
Appears to be pushing down the trunks, but
Perhaps not. Maybe black hairs that linger
In underarm appease the need for smut.
He looks down past his manly nose and lips,
Past nipple, and towards his cropped out hips.
(#5)
A darkling sea beneath the darkling sky,
Both breached by brilliant Hellenistic sun,
Have set before them, all, a statue, sly
Of angle to the three. He is to stun
Us into wonder by his beauty, sheen
And slant. His armlessness, the darkest part
Of him, jolts this chiaroscuro scene.
By lifted foot, by sunshine near the heart,
By tilted head and face, and small,
Small genitals, the tiny slice of light
Behind the hip, the total, two-toned, tall
Young man outshines completely what is bright.
The waves and wind would harm him even more,
Despite the damage, perfect on the shore.
(#6) Not Relief, Yet not Free-standing
He leans so heavily against the stone
That it must have that pock-marked ancient strength
Of wanting immortality. Rock’s own
Strict weightiness has kept its glow the length
Of centuries which the sun has slashed down on
Hard face. The god, though, angled to avail
Himself of strong support—his face is gone.
He could not, even if he wanted, wail
For manly member hacked away by who
Knows what degrading circumstance. That note
Won’t come from him, for he is missing, too,
That gaping portion of his massive throat.
What masculinity is left to him,
Relieved of head and organ and hacked limb?
(#7)
Because the images are white and black
Supposedly (though actually grays),
Because the chest and shoulder are not slack,
Because the arm and torso in the blaze
Of sunlight as it ever was in Greece
Reveal no softness, only solid planes
Of shadowed, stone-like flesh, because each crease
Of stretch-skinned muscle bulges, contours, strains
To stun the lens, because two just nipples,
Dark but hot with light, and navel punched with
Darkness punctuate the strong meat ripples,
He might as well be marble and be myth.
Yet there’s that stippling of his hairs, and jet
Comportment in armpit, and drop of sweat.
(#8)
The aim was beauty, but there’s sadness in
The face. The underlying thought must be
That melancholy has to underpin
Male loveliness. His curlings make a plea
As strong as Charybdis for pensive shades,
At least for wistfulness’s shadows. Lips
Fade into thoughtful dark, as into glades
Of Hades. He remembers real-life hips,
Not sun-warmed stone. Whose fingers touched his hair,
Whose armless fingers toyed with his curls,
His curls once warm and glossy black? A pair
Of marble hands caresses sacred swirls.
His nose is broken off. A gloom beneath
His eye says he has heartache to bequeath.
(#9 and #9)
He has a cap of curlings on his head
And falling down his neck are tendrils of
Them, frilled, elongated loveliness wed
With stone forever there. Hanging above
The deepened groove for backbone, that black swerve
Down contrapposto flesh, the two-tiered curls
Surmount his masculinity of curve.
Wherever eyes look, loveliness unfurls
In nakedness: one hip in brilliant light;
Akin to carved eclipse the other one
Is like a younger brother; full but slight
Its echo in recapitulation
Below the tiny waist, in turn below
The broadened back’s and shoulders’ manly flow.
The most surprising beauty is the high-
Swept girdle made of lichens on his waist
And upper buttocks. This appears a sigh
Atop those swells and midriff being laced
By centuries of loving focus done
By dampness on his shape, by light and shade,
By raindrops kissing him because the sun
Had loved him far too much and so had made
Him thirsty for their lips. We have to guess
This since his face is turned away. We see
His smooth right shoulder with a horrid mess
Of roughest rock as background to decree
His sleekness from the hidden armpit to
The ribs, a line that charged Apollo drew.
(#10)
It’s odd . . . when pictures that contain a form
That’s human . . . interest the eye because
Of other factors, not those shapely, warm
Pudenda, breasts, or shoulders; when the cause
Of beauty or of intellectual
Arousal is perhaps a grainy mist
Or Highland cloud as ineffectual
As smells from armpits wanting to be kissed
Despite their scent. Two figures are held high
For worship on worn pedestals, but light
And shadow in the glen seduce the eye,
And what inspires the heart’s own holy rite,
Perspective, grades . . . away . . . from sculptured blocks . . .
To haze and hills and clouds above glen lochs.
(#11)
Some poses of the human body must
Militate against beauty and desire.
These attitudes oppose blow-torch lust
Or even any valuing. No choir
Breaks out shouting along the pulsing veins.
The shadows from the bulging in the crotch
Are sexless as the woollen swimsuit strains
Against its contents. No one wants to watch
Them or the hairless stomach with its chest
Of dark declivities and swells above
The tanning navel. And, as for the rest,
The shapeless biceps engender no love.
Then, worst of all, the tent-like nostrils cast
Their blackness like failed lovers from the past.
(#12)
.
His garment, toga-like, or what is left
Of it, is fixed in stone. It falls across
His shoulder and his clavicle, though heft
Of marble cloth must be deduced. The loss
Of limbs is negligible compared to
Decapitation and the neck that’s bashed
Away as clean as vapors from voodoo
Bones burned as incense after being smashed.
But most distressing is the dignity
Of manly, godly chest crashed down and prone
Against the unforgiving plinth. We see
The beauty (that once was) in silent groan.
Eternity is harsh. Each set of gods
And heroes crumbles in history’s odds.
(#13 and #13)
At first we see the one in front, his face
In semi-profile, all in blinding white
Except where shadow from his eyebrow’s grace
And faultless nose cut something like a blight
Of beauty on his high-cheeked skin, that skin
Of marble god-like endlessness. Above
The thick-waved tresses an eerily thin,
Translucent veil descends, disposes of
All reticence to love him. Unbroken,
His genitals are perfect, though too small
And hidden in the shade. They betoken
Cool calmness and restraint. Across his tall
Perfected form, dark falls slant from his arm,
And whispers to the world, “Do not harm.”
Behind him, to his right, we see the shape
Of yet another perfect man, the form,
Though, blocked in part by stone of flimsy cape
And by the prime one’s hand held out in warm
Illumination. Fingers block the view
Of brimmed, swayed hip, partially, but the full
Amazement of that bulge is strongly true
Despite the innocent gesture. The pull
Of background utterness is heightened by
The most remarkable phenomenon
Within this composition: spectral, high
Chiaroscuro force comes in a dawn
Of lighting from the slightly upper left.
It gives the whole scene an eternal heft.
(#14)
We think that we’re immediately supposed
To think, “Surreal!” when looking at this scene.
The figure is in every way enclosed
Despite the outdoor setting. Hurtful, clean,
The whiteness of the garment which enshrouds
Him is sepulchral, so the staring sun
Seems out of place completely. Hunching clouds,
Though white, keep distance. Their height seems to shun
Him, so the space, already bound in rocks
Is right for one whose face is blanked from view
Because a mirror surface turns and blocks
Our seeing him. His eyes cannot see you.
His hand his held so we can see its back
And palm. But what we focus on is black.
(#15)
A Persian lion sculpture dominates
The upper right-hand corner and it ought
To mesmerise the scene, yet what awaits
The eye at front and center is more fraught
With mystery and tension. There a long
Male person lies, stretched out across small stones
That must feel harsh as sores. There must be strong
Commitment of some sort to make his bones
Desire to lie there on the desert floor
In pain. The unexplained reasons escape.
He simply renders no responses for
Anything, hidden as he is in cape
And cowl. We see no more than his dark feet
And calves. His hooded secret is complete.
(#16)
Boring is boring. Someone should have most
Emphatically advised him not to print
This photograph. Perhaps he’d overdosed
On Liefbraumilch and so he thought a glint
Of brilliance came because of the cropping.
And, true, because we cannot see how close
Their bodies are, we’re saddled with whopping
Ennui. There isn’t beauty to engross
Our hearts or even hints of secrecy
To titillate our hormones—just two blokes’
Heads lying there on white stone cushions, free
From any eroticism. A hoax
Is being pulled on me . . . though, I suppose
One of them has a metronome straight nose.
(#17)
Is cuteness countenanced in any art
Of high-flown aim? The mask should lend a tone
Of seriousness or even threat. Its part
Here is to make the pertness overblown.
The mask conceals the boy’s eyes, but no
Enigma is produced. Instead the cute
Nose grabs our notice and the lips below
That preciousness hold freshness like choice fruit
Pressed sweetly to the mouth of Ganymede
By Zeus. The young man’s chest and shoulders are
Too sweet, just like a browning grape. They plead
A natural innocence. They are a mar
Of tastelessness in solemn creation.
This image should have suffered cremation.
(#18) Virtually Surreal
Presumably the sky is blue — and dark,
Wine-dark the sea. Presumably the hills
Along the coast are ancient limestone, stark
Except for vegetation’s ancient frills,
More ancient than Hellenes on limestone land
As they embarked for Troy. In short, the scene
Is unremarkable, except for grand
Black spots upon the grander dog. His keen
Black nose and snout are held so high they’re next
To thrusting from the picture. His flank leans
Against his master’s calf. Somehow this vexed
Placement upsets what the photograph means—
If it means. Displacement is the effect.
Meaning and reality disconnect.
(#19) Seashore Shock
No doubt the one that we’re obliged to look
At is the young one, foreground, right, with broad,
Deep chest and shoulders, small waist, and the hook
Of sumptuous fruits ajar; yes, with that odd,
Coy cleft of shadows in between. The white
Of rather thick and heavy cloth that grips
Both emphasizes them. Darkness, light
And textured tone eroticize these hips
(As if they weren’t already meant to grab
The eye and heart). The clumsy cloth enshrines
The lens’s lust directed at each slab
Of oval muscle where panting light shines.
The man beside him has abhorrent black
Where he should have a face. The soul goes slack.
(#20)
Voluminous the robe or gown absorbs
His self. You cannot see his shoulders, thighs
Or torso. Definitely not those orbs
Of manliness that Greeks would carve in size
Too small (with silly penis). What you see
Are hands and fingers, throat, a head, and face.
The garment swallows everything else. We
Are forced to deal with stripes, royal in grace
But covering all the rest, pavilion-like,
That you might want to dote on. Yes, what shows
Is masculine but then the cypress spike
Reminds us why this book of pictures glows:
This volume wants to play down phallic shock.
It hesitates to show the crucial cock.
(#21)
There’s nothing here; not really. Why are these
Two there together, not together, just
One lying down, one drying off, at ease
In front of tripod, lens and camera? Lust
Could be an explanation, if you know
The man who’s shooting the picture is gay.
It’s taken from a perspective to show
The obvious erection (with the splay
Of thighs) inside the swimming trunks. In fact
There’s nothing much else in the frame. This one’s
Sprawled legs and arms spread wide do not distract
The viewer; most certainly not the buns
Of his companion towelling his wet face.
Except for the erection there’s no grace.
(#22)
Black, black, black, black, and black—these bodies laid
Out, side by side, in bathing suits as black
As death by drowning in Poseidon’s shade
There just beyond, beneath their heads: a quack
Psychologist might a make a lot of all
That blackness of the sea that they ignore
While soaking up their sun here where they sprawl
Beside it and beside each other. Four
White boys, two of them touching drowsing wrists
Coincidentally, they lie supine
Except for one who’s turned. His body twists
His face towards the nightmare-deep black brine.
There isn’t death, though, and there isn’t sex:
Four boys, rock slab, and waves with white-ish flecks.
(#23)
If only gravel, rocks, and trees were there
We might think, “Bonsai and the purity
Of Buddhism.” But two young men with hair
Are posed beside the left-hand rock and tree.
This changes everything. The men are nude
Except for bathing slips so brief that hips
(But not a crotch) are bared. There’s nothing crude
(Unless that bottom puckers up your lips
Involuntarily for kissing). These
Two men neglect each other, turning back
On back. There isn’t a story to seize
About sex—just a composition, black
And gray and white, elemental forms set
Beside each other. Yet our heartbeats sweat.
(#24) Bum Composition
Congruence of the ribcage just below
The skin and flesh (and other shadings there
From shoulders downwards) with the ebb and flow
Of waves is maybe interesting. This bare
Objet d’art offers little else to catch
The eye or intellect, much less the heart.
The big-hipped boy is skinny and to match
These boring facts there is no other part
Of this opus worthy of looking at.
It is as if the visual responds
Against itself, because it shows a splat
Of thorn-like jetsam shaped like toxic wands.
Perhaps the point is awkwardness. We see
It culminating in that thigh and knee.
(#25)
They’re black in silhouette, but up above
Them is a band of high-watt sun, a light
Come down to give this shining world hot love.
Although their frolicking first grabs our sight,
Soon other elements attract the eye.
The splashing salt-bright water lifts our thought
To things more perfect than the endless sigh
Of things eternal. Drops of brightness ought
To last mere moments. That is ever true.
Then glistening patterns speckled on the deep
Black water force our sentiments to slew
To briefer things than death, like dreams in sleep.
And does that god-struck foreground seem to be
An ancient hero figure on the sea?
(#26) . . . And One of Them Looks
Crippled Because his Head
is in Such an Extremely
Stupid Position
The nicest thing about the human male
Is silliness. Men love to mess about,
To play the fool, to fart around, to flail
About in Abbott and Costello rout
Of earnestness. Two guys lie down beside
Each other on the beach. They plop their spines
Flat, awkwardly, forgetting manly pride.
They abandon society’s designs
On them and flop down, grinning. Lying top
To tail, they make a pointed arch with feet
And legs. With muscled giddiness they prop
Them up. One holds his kneecaps very neat,
Between the other’s. Looking dopey, they
Escape their machoness and just look fey.
(#27) Perfect, Diminished
The many visions of young men impressed
Upon these pages are just photographs,
Of course, some serious and some in jest,
Some icons of a sort, and some for laughs.
This one’s for smiles, is multiple within
Itself, because of three exposures. First,
We notice leap-frogging young men, in twin
Positions (large and smaller one submersed
Beneath it), both of them a bit of fun
And flop-haired harmonic. The overlay
Produces dominance, not overdone
Yet just enough to undercut the play.
The background shows them ambling on the sand,
Diminished by the darkroom’s sleight of hand.
(#28) Limited Choices
One time when I was walking past a bus
Stop in this town, two men were facing near,
Near, NEAR each other. One moved his hard, pus-
Filled face yet closer. I thought, “Are they queer?
Are these two really going to kiss right now,
Here?” Then I saw that they were going to fight.
This wasn’t love. This cued a brutal row
Of hatred starting. One was fisting fright
Into the other’s guts. This photo seems
The same. We see two men, young, in embrace,
But is it love, or lust, or hate? The themes
Of manliness are implacable. We trace
That gripping groove beside the bicep and
We wonder what control lies here on sand.
(#29) and (#29)
Perfection and perfection three times here—
Three times perfection gives one pure ideal.
At least that is the Christian doctrine. Hear
Apostles speak it: Only God is Real,
Real thrice times one. That mystic godhead sates
The universe and One of these became
Warm flesh. Across the cosmos are the weights
Of love and beauty. Three young men here claim
The promise of this doctrine. They embrace
Each other in a triangle of soft
Skinned contours, muscles, hair and manly grace.
They lift the creed. They lift the heart aloft.
These Nordic gods lift up the trinity
Through shapely masculine affinity.
As beautiful as heavy anchor chain
Links lying over one another, though
Perfected, these men, one with wave-like mane
Above the others shows a breaker’s flow.
If viewed from up above, their heads might look
Like seaweed or like mermen’s surging hair
Yet what this lens here offers is the hook
Of contours, muscles, young men’s skin as snare.
The swellings of the arms and shoulders are as strong
As naval chains. No. Stronger than a horse
Inside the chest. Their beauty is as long
As Neptune’s trident stabbing hearts with force.
It shows their smooth armed shapes, those swollen forms
That cause inside our ribs Poseidon’s storms.
(#30) The Monumental Focus
The monumental focus on this man
Derives from cropping, which is ironic.
He’s only large because the camera can
Be overridden. He is iconic
Due to that later trick. The word “silly”
Comes sharply into focus. It’s that knee
That ruins all. It’s magnified shrilly
Because it’s thrust too close. Hilarity
Results—well, mockery at least. There’s nowt
Impressive, actually, about him. No
One element of him is lordly. Pout
Of lips emphasizes how comic, low
And ordinary this guy really is.
Olympic gravitas just isn’t his.
(#31) and (#31) Unlike Marble Divinity
The light and shadow on a calf, the light
And shadow on a thigh, solidity
And softness of the flesh, the rounded, slight
Protuberances in his trunks, these we
Are called upon to notice. And we do,
Subconsciously or knowingly, as is
Our wont. Given the come on to construe
Whatever we might want, looking at his
Physique we call to mind a figure on
A famous tympanum. Though, with that one,
The left knee’s straight high up the Parthenon,
The bent one, too, takes Mare Nostrum’s sun.
Ignore the other human in the pair—
The main one’s shin’s aglow with skimpy hair.
It’s obvious the eyes should see the hair,
And head, and shadow contours and the nose
Belonging to the central one. The snare
His loveliness presents, the sexy pose
Revealing abs, triangulated points
Of navel and the nipples on his chest,
His shadowed, shining arms, his muscled joints,
The spreading of those thighs to show his best
Protuberances there in trunks, these must
Monopolize our vision. But the pale
Man on the right compels us to adjust
Our concept of the beachside human male.
The shadings on his lumpish back are more
Contusion-like than something to adore.
(#32) and (#32)
Fasting and Worship
The only things that will have driven this
Photographer to take this picture must
Have been those little puckered hopes for bliss
Predicted in his lips’ and mouth parts’ lust.
The older man desired those two nipples,
Those little knobbly temples. So he set
Up this elaborate shot of ripples,
When what he really cared about was wet
Meat, such as that upon the hairy shin.
Artistically, the smudging of those two
Male circlets on the water is the thin
Motivation not to bend in and chew.
Reflections on the water’s skin of those
Is only an excuse to make him pose.
Fasting and Worship
The only things that will have driven this
Photographer to take this picture must
Have been those little puckered hopes for bliss
Predicted in his lips’ and mouth parts’ lust.
The older man desired those two nipples,
Those little knobbly temples. So he set
Up this elaborate shot of ripples,
When what he really cared about was wet
Meat, such as that upon the hairy shin.
Artistically, the smudging of those two
Male circlets on the water is the thin
Motivation not to bend in and chew.
Reflections on the water’s skin of those
Is only an excuse to make him pose.
(#33)
The angle of the sun blots out their eyes.
The lips are smiling, though they’re cloaked in shade.
Beyond them and the coastal mountains lies
An insufficient universe betrayed
By beauty in the foreground: two profiles
Which, turning, laugh as if they know two gods
Who made the world and them in different styles,
Don’t realize how much against the odds
This placement was until divinity
Set beauty in their mouths and parted lips
In opposition to affinity
With thrusting nippled chests and unseen hips.
Behind these laughing, happy, well-shaped boys
The cosmos is at best a light gray noise.
(#34)
What’s wrong with near perfection? Nothing. He
Is spread before us darkly. Since his eye
Stares, focused to the distant left, we see
No hint of soul and maybe that is why
We worship. We do not desire a god
We understand, whose heart is open, clear,
Accessible. We want our spirits awed.
Perhaps the lovely arm is his severe
Crosscut to those realms we most desire, our
Dreams of impenetrably divine
Existences posed quite beyond our power
To grasp. But no, the fleshly, folded line
Across his abdomen, the shadowed chest
And armpit hair make him taboo and best.
(#35) Paragon in Profile
What’s wrong with near perfection? Nothing. It
Becomes the summit of the best of
Best. He subsumes them all. We submit
Our souls to his conflation. Call it love
Or worship, we would bring oblations to
This paradigm of beauties, holding all
Combined: the gorgeous form stretched out to view
With spangling sea-spray drops, and in their thrall
The strength of purest daylight (on the skin),
The body sprawled in loveliness of length,
As pantingly large as a sun-struck grin,
With brightness and the shadows in his strength.
The neat, neat nipple and the navel hole
Are like prayer targets on this muscled scroll.
(#36) A Group
Three boys lie together on the sand
And harsh sea-grass, the kind that grows on dunes,
But otherwise the photo is as bland
As innocence always is. No balloons
Of muscles swollen by testosterone
Afflict the bodies yet. They are just boys.
They sleep beside each other but alone,
Not knowing men might fancy them as toys
In bed, especially when they have flared
More full. One hand is laid across a back,
A knobbly knee across a thigh, but paired
Off for sex? No. They’re just sleeping and slack.
Their swimming trunks are sexless as a rug.
Their innocence, sea-deep, is sweetly smug.
(#37) In Some Sense He
In some sense he is just a shape subdued
To two dimensions, here a lighter part
And there a depth of shade, but these collude
To make us see in three dimensions. Art
Is false by definition, so this view
Broods, artificial, black and white and gray.
The shape, though not as simple as a pew,
Defies reduction, posing a bouquet
Of hair and body hair, concavity,
Convexities, of swellings, dimples, blond
Tresses—all adding up to gravity
Of beauty, its horizons and beyond.
It’s just a hunk of bone-held fuzzy meat
Seducing with gradations of deceit.
(#38) As Far as It Can Thrust
Supposedly the sporting scene, the pose
With shot put is the purpose, but the least
Bit deeper notice and the viewer knows
The truth. Forget the pine tree. See the beast
Himself—the very hairy thighs, the hair
There on his belly disappearing in
The stretched white bathing suit, the hairy pair
Of armpits and the hairy top of shin—
And you will know exactly what the point
Was. Not exactly, no. The upward bulge
Is shadowed. Bright light shapes the pivot joint.
The tight, filled cloth refuses to divulge
The thing embraced by it. The viewer must
Elect to see the face or think of lust.
(#39) Mind the Gap
Again the pine tree, but with Tarzan pose
This time: the juxataposition of this
Slim, wiry blond young man with so few clothes
Elicits sneering. It’s taking the piss
If we are seriously expected to
Compare the jungle hero with this youth.
If Cheetah, Tarzan’s chum, could see this view,
He’d giggle and shout in chimp language, “Struth!”
Not only is the boy not muscly, but
He’s not even good-looking. List handles
This shot so comically badly the jut
Of that right arm’s as bad as the sandals.
The vein on the calf and his hair are all
That work—and the crotch gap isn’t that small.
(#40)
A certain cruelty in the mouth and skin
And nostrils probably explains the cord
Wrapped round and round him. Keeping him within
Tight binding, though, would risk that he’d be bored.
You wouldn’t want his darkness to lash out
From feeling tied. The right-hand nipple’s trapped
Already, can’t be seen, is in a pout
Most probably. Be careful. Anger strapped
In bides its time. Advice: just let it be,
Plain, stark, and open like that other nub
With light there on his chest. Let man be free
Or else, his eyes askance, this one will drub
You for your pains. Just look at that black throat.
It promises his liberty will gloat.
(#41) Arrangement in Gray and Black, No Import
The right leg isn’t posing. It just leans,
Slants, balances, and that is all. Its strength
Is that its natural positioning means
Nothing. No one has gone to any length
To give this composition any weight
Except of balance and design. There’s no
Attempt to glorify or desecrate
Some heavy concept. We’ve only the glow
Above, beyond, around each silhouette
Of black where men are standing on a beach.
There isn’t any lumbering with threat.
The ship and headlands and the men don’t teach.
They simply are. The image doesn’t bray,
This synoptic array of black and gray.
(#42)
Because he’s leaning backward, shoulders, back,
And torso are aslant from camera view
(A slight bit farther than his crotch). They lack
Their wonted power. This causes eyes to glue
Themselves upon his hips and upper thighs.
The large-sized swimming suit, more like a white
Diaper than briefs, tends to emphasize
This middle portion of his presence. Bright
Light forces his profile features to glow
Around their edges as he turns his gaze
To catch the other young man’s look. They know
What’s going on. The lounging one will raise
Himself up. They will share the bike and leave
The beach, with each one willing to receive.
(#43) Reflection
The dowdy, frumpish swimsuit on the front
Man proves, conceals a large-ish member. Two
Guys standing just behind him aren’t so blunt
With their man parts, leaving more to construe
Because this pair’s not close. In fact we have
To strain to think that we might even see
The second one’s navel. Not knee or calf
Is visible on this middle one. Free
Of details because he’s so far away
The third one manages to catch the heart
Because he makes a gesture, a cliché
Of maleness, almost. That is his dark part.
Both, static and dynamic, they stand posed
To show that secret selves bid undisclosed.
(#44) His Image is Quite Stunning
His image is quite stunning with bright lines
And shadows striking down across this male
(Yes, partly due to them). They are the mines
Of palpitations instantly. The pale
Stripes work in concert with the dark bands, bear
Down on his muscles, a multiple kiss,
And cause our arteries and veins to flare.
The dark ones force our guts and throats to hiss
With gourmandizing greed. The strong effect
Is overwhelming and the black-patch hair
Beneath his shoulders shoots to the heart, wrecked
Already. Lust has seldom been so bare.
Behind him, unimportantly, at last
Is seen the boy that we were too aghast
to notice.
(#45)
He’s not so young as all the others are.
His skin is lacking in perfection, though
It’s not as pocked and ruined as the scar
And blemishes upon the wall. His slow
Lean, like the twinning tilt against its skin
His neck and head have loosely chosen, glows
With sexy listlessness. Too tired for sin
His would-be hard on, covered, weakly shows
Its strength. Actually, every part of him
Presents itself as soft, grayly effete,
Not gravelly like the wall. He’s not quite prim
But just a bit too thin. He looks too sweet.
Perhaps that sweet’s too strong. Perhaps he’s slack.
He should of course have shown his rear and back.
(#46) and (#46)
Desperation is the
Mother of Pretension
The human heart is as mysterious
As any anchoress could hope for. It
May start a pilgrimage as serious
As Francis seeking for stigmata lit
By decades of devotion. But hearts must
Occasionally be mislead by stupid stuff.
A young man’s calisthenics may be just
The wrong distraction, maybe just enough
To bugger high artistic aims. Never
Mind he’s so ho hum and he can only
Become more plain and old and forever
Be boring and boringer. You’re lonely,
So you invite him. You’re desperate and
So snap him, capture him, forever bland.
The deepest, darkest shadow underneath
That arm is decent, more or less the one
Good thing about this pose. Still, there’s that breath
Of sweatless clouds above him with its sun
Beyond our sight. He’s turned to face it, though
That’s quite a big mistake esthetically.
He looks a bit too much like gouged Play Dough.
Even pumping those arms frenetically
Most probably would manufacture wet
Armpits and that’s about all. No beauty
Would be the result. No one wants to pet
That light struck nipple. He just looks fruity.
Requiring much more than calisthenics,
He should have been produced by eugenics.
(#47)
The teardrop shadow falling from that chest
Seems wrong in all the masculinity
Contained inside this volume. . . not his “breast,”
No. That word has too much salinity
From women. The large wheel with its teeth
Hints sexuality caught up in clocks,
In clockwork inescapable. Beneath,
His fist grips roughest iron. Hard maleness mocks
Mere femininity. “Let male hair live!”
The picture shouts in armpit and on scalp.
Diagonals in composition give
Dynamic strength like Britain’s large rock Calpe,
A Pillar spliced by Herakles. The clouds
Say weakly, “Young men should never wear shrouds.”
(#48) and (#48)
Sea Legs
Unsteadiness in men is what we’re used
To, like the tremors in the rocky ground
Of Italy. We take measures, to boost
Abilities to cope. Men play around
In boats and beds. The waves beneath the boats
We cope with much the same way that we cope
With bed demands. We take their poles with throats
And lower down. We steady with his rope
And ours. We steady, spreading thighs apart
And squatting slightly…deeply. Poles are most
Important in this steadying. His heart
Will stray for sure unless we play the host
To poling needs. The rockingness of men
Is sure. They’re constant only now and then.
That little cap of curls, that cap of hair
Surmounting high up streaks across the sky
Makes all the rest worthwhile. This poling pair
Supposedly’s the subject, but the sly
Dark truth was that those leaping happy curls
Were the point. The clouds were meaningless, white,
Explosion-like, a brightness which unfurls
Behind that beauty. All the rest is slight
Like holograms although the other one
Stands more robust and focused like a lad
Should be. Though he’s eclipsed, he’s like the sun
If it were modest like Sir Galahad.
His sturdy shorts and sleeve look rugged for
The sinewed task—this budding stevedore.
(#49)
There’s all that hardness on display. The hair
Is covered, making him more basic, tight,
And muscular. The arms and torso, bare,
Are not distracted by a curly sight
Or wavy locks. The volts of stretching veins
There, on the forearm, mark out shadowed, pale
Determination. Herbert is at pains
To capture all the essences of male.
Triangularity and darkness shape
Our view of masculinity. The black
Diagonals, the angle of the nape
That’s bent in strain of work, reveal no lack
Of power. The shadows underneath those lengths
Of arms add admiration of his strengths.
(#50)
Carnival Glass
Some pictures have to be just made for facts.
Or, even if there’s artistry as well,
That’s more a frill. Some ordinary acts
Of mundane life are given a slight swell
By being framed and captured in art like
This Junge Männer, meaningless meaning
You maybe could pretend. Plain things hitchhike
A pilgrimage—a home movie screening
Among the Oscars or the Palme d’Or
Contenders. In spite of the arching pose
And shining water, this one doesn’t score,
Not really. It’s not poetry. It’s prose.
What’s worse? The cutesy nose, or baggy shorts?
This isn’t diamond imagery. It’s quartz.
(#51)
We like the honesty, the ugly bits.
They raise it up above esthetic stuff.
Design and composition proffer its
Artistic rationale. They’re not enough.
The frankness of the lumpy back and thighs
Diminishes the nearby beauty. High
Salvation is provided by the wise
Decision to devote us to the wry.
The water isn’t beautiful. The dock
Is just a dock. Instead our eye is forced
To deal with plainness. List avoids schlock.
The quotidian is held up and endorsed.
It’s true, the guy there on the left is just
Too much a poser, tempting our disgust.
(#52)
Sloped Lines Can Meet
Because the image is so boxlike, squared
Up, rigid — ineluctably it must
Be male. Our eyes are desperate to be spared
Straight boringness. We want some respite, lust
Or beauty, lovely curvilinear
Relief. And that is what we’re given, there,
Off center. The boy could be skinnier
And that might be desired. The lock of hair
Is perfect and deflects us from the flab
Of tit. He isn’t lovely but that lock
Helps us ignore the nipple like a scab.
The hank of hair distracts us from that shock.
And the lens hints triangularity
Could flow from lower angled clarity.
(#53)
The Hair Tries to Conceal
his Troubled Brow
Uncertainty expands. What makes this work
Extend to something like surreal response
In marrow depths? This feeling is a murk
Of vague turmoil, as if Aix en Provençe
Has been transplanted to a misty glen
Beyond Loch Lomond. Mirrored wisps of clouds
Are somehow linked to an uncertain fen
With gray beneath the jaw like Pictland’s shrouds.
The tilted mirror causes unnerving
Emotions in the guts. White slope and rise
Of muscles above it, flesh swerving,
Swelled up and down, offset the darkling eyes.
Reflective glass frames hidden depths—and shields
A young man’s spirit and its battlefields.
(#54)
The Only Explanation
Another of the few to make us laugh,
This photo’s almost comedy entire.
It’s hard to say which element’s the gaffe
That takes the cake as funny. His attire
Is quite enough to make us smile and sneer—
No part of him that isn’t stupid in
Some tasteless way, that doesn’t make us jeer.
There’s hardly anything which isn’t sin
Against the beauty of this book. His face
Alone is tres offensive. Luckily
We aren’t shown much. There isn’t grace,
Except the ugly sheep occludes one knee.
The saddest thing of all about this pic
Is that the snapper must have loved his prick.
(#55) and (#56)
Germany and Italy Make Contact when the Book is Closed
The picture of this German, part submerged
In water, is imprinted on a page
That closes so his mouth is always urged
Against a shoulder as if in a rage
Of blond desire for the young Italian’s
Muscles in the facing image. Here all
Three faces look away. The dark stallions
Are twisted hard as if blond lips appall
Them with their lust. The German looks distressed.
The others are dismissive of his needs.
Ignoring him they lean, torsos undressed,
Refusing him like black poetic steeds.
They tempt him and deny him, apart,
That is, for that shoulder, kissed from the heart.
(#57 and #58)
Possible Openings
Two pictures, too alike, of men are face
To face on these opposing pages. When
The book is closed, the lovely lips embrace
Each other, almost. Can it be a sin
For gorgeous mouths to kiss their likes, though male,
Together? Yes, it must be since they fail
To make the perfect touch. They don’t engross
The dry ink image of the other’s lips.
The dark one’s kiss falls just upon the nose.
The blond one’s tenderness just barely nips
The full, plush cushion in the dark face pose.
Not meant to kiss each other, no, these, men,
But sometimes circumstance prevails, and then . . .
(#59)
To say that he is from an elfin land
Like Middle Earth, a charmed one who is blond,
A pale inhabitant and almost bland
In hexing is too weak. He smiles beyond
His fairy magic face. His spell-like hair
In tresses makes a loveliness in curves
And luxury of layers, is a snare
To catch the camera unaware, in swerves
Of sunshine that has been enslaved. The mode
Of strength is in the shadows on his nose
That make him seem like one who cracks the code
Of wizards ranged against male beauty’s face.
A war between his whiskers, nigh unseen,
And mouth is won by lips with witching sheen.
(#60)
Uncertain evil, Elvis-like in look,
Stares out from dark, dark eyes—
Perhaps not wicked, quite, glares from the book
But only threatening beauty, more the size
Of glory than of menace. Maybe he
Is like a devil fresh from heaven, stark
In loveliness of blackest eyebrow, free
From ugliness and shapely as a shark.
Perfection here has fallen recently
To shadows on the eyelids and the nose.
His carved coal lips and face indecently
Inflict a perfect urge. Winged hot lust grows
As if celestial flawnessness now turns
To total love where looming hellfire burns.
(#61)
Who said that beauty is a boring thing,
That looking at a perfect sample of
Strong loveliness won’t make a man’s heart sing
Forever . . . or for longer? Beauty, love,
Eternity, perfection—these are one.
We call them God and when we meet them in
A man, we know that Christ made him to stun
Us into faith. We know that there is sin
Around us, everywhere, but not in him,
At least not in our worship of his face.
A mouth as full as that is not a whim
Divinity has shaped. There is a grace
Too utter in it, in those luscious lips.
In silence they shout, “Those kissable hips!”
(#62)
Too slim of chest and young, too pure and small
Of shoulder, lit so softly to affirm
Naïveté, he stands. What could appal
Us most about him? What could make us squirm
The most uncomfortably? Not the two
Unpromising nipples, not the pair
Of shadowed armpits withholding from view
The answer to our question, “Is thin hair
There, hustling to sprout out male sweating smell
In their darkness?” The downward shyness of
The gaze is his attempt to cast a spell
Against the lust outside the frame—or love.
The photograph is mild and sweet and bland
Until we spy that drape-grasping man’s hand.
(#63)
The focus, anguished, is upon those eyes,
That wound-like mouth made up of dark light lips,
The god-filled irises, not his furry thighs.
Most certainly it isn’t on his hips.
It’s on his face, those wet light eyes, his nose
With gloss from heaven’s shining jealous streets,
Those eyes surrounded by uncertain glows
And darknesses like bruises from deceits.
No. That’s falsely sentimental. The arm
Is raised for us to see beneath the latch
Of boyish shoulder, just one sight to harm
Our softer sentiments—that hairy patch.
It spreads, a dark Crab Nebula, and fills
Our knowing with its blackest armpit frills.
(#64)
Never Mind the Lower,
Almost Flabby Belly,
and the Crazed Lust in
THAT Lower Lip
The loveliness of flesh, of beauty’s light
On flesh, of light made beautiful by flesh,
These matter. They are crucial, are the height
Of art. The moderns tried to make art fresh
By torturing its form so only style
Remained. The content didn’t matter, not
One jot. The splattering of canvas, vile
Distortions in the frame and sculptures, squat
Ugliness and sneering lack of meaning,
These mattered. Shape of breast and body hair,
The folds of flesh and skin, darts convening
Towards dark armpit, these kinds of visual snare
Were nothing. Shine on shoulder, glowing arm,
Bent nose. . .who cares? They wanted grotesque harm.
(#65)
Mystique Barely Hiding Eternity
The flaws are real, perhaps weird even. Still
This image really zings. Those mud drools on
The torso, they are like a multi-spill
Of blotches undercutting stealthy brawn.
The beauties far outweigh bruised faults, so much
That beauty reigns wherever soul resides.
The mirror and the muscles and the touch
That veil his powers, this mix overrides
The lesser elements. A higher clime
Of total loveliness derives from face
Turned slightly up, effecting the sublime
Mild condescension everyone would trace
In certain manliness. Men live in hours,
Yet hold their unknown strengths and private powers.
(#66)
Young and Doomed
Why fear a nightmare when, already, you
Are caught in one? He lies alone in bed,
Itself sufficient bad dream stuff to skew
This scene away from others here. His head
Especially looks threatened with his black
Hair trapped in dead dark shadow, shifting strands
To vacuum of grim. In their attack
The varied shades of gray are like the glands
Of death. They turn a simple room to hell
While other pictures in the book expose
Some lesser purgatory, not so fell
In their encroaching black, barring repose.
The lack of sexuality makes dry
This light. The threat is in the nose and eye.
(#67)
The Force of Destiny
The forceful, foreground hips, so uncontained
By futile cloth, command. They dominate.
Their placement, provocatively unconstrained,
So dangerously near him, abrogate
The boy’s hope of innocence below
Them. They will be the engine of the ram
The boy will feel once they abandon slow
Impatience in the taking of this lamb.
His skimpy white protection will be stripped
From hopeless hips. That straight-nosed man
Will have him and those eyes will be unzipped.
Their vision will take in where ache began.
Two pairs of hairy legs will be entwined
To show the way where pain and pleasure bind.
(#68)
Those Eyes. Those Eyes.
Those eyes. Those eyes. First, radiant, his left
One, filled with light, commands the photograph.
That clarity of iris has the heft
Of God within. The darker other half,
The less light parts, that pupil gazing black,
Consumes our hearts and then we notice how
Much more compelling doom is. We go slack
With pity, fear and lust. Each unmatched brow
Distracts us. Mostly, though, we feel the threat
Provided by the one behind him, arms
Crossed, tight, opposite of an amulet,
Protective of nothing but future harms.
The thickened legs on him are bad, and blotch
Of light brings focus to his bulging crotch.
(#69)
A Spiritual Reading: I Corinthians 13
What merit does this image have? Why print
It in between two strangely moving ones?
There is a bit of beauty here, a hint
Of dreaminess as well, yet nothing stuns
Us. Light and shade and texture form the whole
Here. Nothing spirit-like shines, unless we
Import it to his eyes, give them the role
Of soul-kinned glow and depth. The gloss we see
Of gleams refracted from his lower lip
Is not the loveliness of seraphim,
Although the way his hair can curl and dip
Down faithfully is like a dark-tuned hymn.
The shape his shoulder makes is sheer
Hope. Love’s rays are playing with his ear.
(#70)
Because the blacks and whites and grays are so
Dessert-like, sweetly subtle on the page,
He almost blends in with the woollen flow
He lies on. Gentle foldings are the stage
The blanket offers for his body and
His open gaze which manages to peer
Out more than softly just above one hand
With arm held frame-like past his forehead, ear,
And those hypnotic eyes. The fingers of
His other hand place tips there on the hair
Of armpit barely visible like love
Awaiting someone’s lips to form a prayer
Among their fibres and their smell. The hairs
Along his other forearm beg for prayers.
(#71)
Just what are we supposed to think? The white
Of swans is turned to black. The cloth
The boy wears seems generous but slight
In modesty behind the lacy froth
That veils the scene. The temple pillars made
Of palest marble, also turned to black,
Supposedly are there to give it class,
This photograph, to twist its focus back
To classic purity, as clean as swans.
But no, the curtain still allows our eyes
To see his arms and shoulders, formed like bronze,
And each of these eclipsed by manly thighs.
The flimsiness between us and his form
Is there to stimulate a lustful storm.
(#72)
Tilt and gentle angles made of curve
Tilt and gentle angles made of curves, mist
With ripples, composition, cropping make
This masterpiece, ein Meisterwerk that kissed
Restraint. Off-center beauty brings our ache
To perfect focus. He is almost on
The right-hand edge. Indeed his mirrored thighs
Are cut off in the scene the way a swan
Is cut off in the water from our eyes.
His loveliness is understated sex.
A swan is not connected to bared lust,
But here the suffering of this young man checks
Estheticism. Art is filled with must.
He clearly wants to leave the lens and get
To warmth. Our coolness offers no regret.
~ Phillip Whidden