A Glowing Untruth
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
The Christians and the Jews and Muslims, not
To mention Hindus, Buddhists and the . . . rest,
Have failed to tell us in exactly what
Sweet ankh-shaped space the soul has made its blest
Sanctorum. (That’s because there is no soul.)
Some say the ancient thought of Egypt placed
The soul within the eye with sacred kohl
Around its holy habitation. Traced
Around the pharaonic wraith-blank eye
Of King Tutankhamun lay precious blue
Stone rims of reverenced lapis lazuli.
Perhaps this ritualed placement whispers true. . .
An emptiness behind the pupils might
Speak, pure, about this non-existent light.
~ Phillip Whidden
Dismissing
If then the soul exists within the eye
And makes in it its sacred cave, the face
Must show the eye full-on and never shy
Away to looking elsewhere. Held in grace
Of lapis lazuli the iris stares
Out straight aside, and does not look away
Towards eternity. The pupil glares
At you. That center will not look astray
At concepts in philosophy. The gaze
Stays fixed on you. Eight thousand years it waits
And in the moment that you pass . . . it . . . weighs . . .
You . . . helplessly. It ponders flimsy fates.
This sideways straightness you cannot deflect.
It silently disdains your intellect.
Forget the Smoothed Out Slopes of Diadumenos
When Botticelli drew firm lines around
Smooth swirls of form beside pale foam, the power
Of ancient Egypt felt itself recrowned.
Those lines appeared again from in that hour
When images were outlined, carved on walls,
Flesh shapes so closed in borders that they could
Not be confused with nature. In the halls
Of art where priests paced through the fatherhood
Of certitude in faith, the muscled skin
Of figures was contained by timeless times.
The certainty portrayed was set within
These formal strictures, clarity like chimes.
This orthodox exactitude banned doubt
By firmness like a king’s lips’ golden pout.
~ Phillip Whidden
