Famously, beauty resides in the eye
Of the beholder. How did it get there?
Explain why some approve while some decry
The same shapes, music, colors, sounds, and flair.

Is it some genetic thing buried deep
That makes me wonder at a sunset
While he sees stormy portents ruining sleep?
Is my gorgeous bloom his allergic threat?

Rembrandt, Manet, Van Gogh, even Dali
Please the heart and eye—but Jackson Pollack
Sells for a million bucks?—insane folly!
Abstract impressionism’s just plain crap.

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin engage,
Enchant our ears—beguiled, we cheer and clap.
Now we’re asked to honor Phil Glass, John Cage
Mocking music’s art (not to mention Rap).

Then there’s us, human shapes: illogical
Protruding nose, hair, convoluted ears,
Toenails, genitals, anatomical
Design—veneers beneath which we appear.

Explain to me how women’s beauty works,
How canny centimeters certify:
An inch or two of breast—firm, nicely perked—
A quarter inch of lip, an eighth of eye
The length and shade of hair, the cream of skin
That curve beneath the knee, the width of thigh
Coalesce, create ugliness of sin
Or beauties that entrance our leering eyes?.

No wonder that philosophers debate
The nature of aesthetic enterprise.
Do we perceive, or randomly create
The beauty that our minds have crystallized?
(5/4/14)