Beauty that appears erotic,
nude, nubile women on a bed,
does not tempt me to turn my head
as much as curves that, asymptotic,
are shaped by feelings that are deep,
and signs of love that, lusting, lazes
beneath the linen sheets and gazes
until it is seduced by sleep.
Michael Kimmelman reviews Lucian Freud’s paintings at the Acquavella Gallery (“Unwavering Scrutiny of the Being Within the Skin, ” The New York Times, April14,2000) . He notes that Freud’s paintings have “an abiding gravity, a gravity always spared from tedium by a trace of ironizing self-humor and an awareness of the hypocrisy and the ridiculousness of so much of what goes on in life”. One of the best works in the show is “Night Portrait, Face Down, ” a vertiginous, voluptuously painted picture in which the female model grasps the ratty mattress she lies on”. He also says: “And beauty becomes something erotic not when it involves an attractive naked young woman lying on a bed (although he appreciates that) , but when it attaches to deep feeling”.
4/14/00,5/15/07
gershon hepner
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/beauty-that-appears-erotic/
