Beauty
Beauty is personal, I believe. And Beauty is spiritual. Beauty is also physical, as the most touching intangible things are. Beauty is never political—which makes Beauty the most subversive idea of all. You might think this is a contradiction, but it isn’t: it is Beautiful. Beauty is whimsical like that, like Cupid: that impossible putti somersaulting through our collective unconscious, scattering daisies and Chaos, in one of those infernally blue skies of the Baroque. Beauty is a lyrical manifestation of Love, first and foremost. Unless you are looking at Beauty in the rearview mirror—a posteriori, as they say in Philosophy, and “encule,” as they say in France, depending on the train of thought and the booty—or beauté—in question. Though tastes and times may terrify us, certainly, I think we can generally agree, as citizens of the galaxy—sub specie æternitatis, as Spinoza says—it is impossible to keep even the most innocent ideals down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree. However exceptional it seems, Beauty is no exception. That is the problem with Beauty. It gets around. Exactly like that demented insect in our tent at Crater Lake—seemingly nowhere and everywhere all at once—like your hands. Beauty might be anything. A mosquito. Me. A man. A flash of forbidden flesh at the gym. A royal flush in Monte Carlo. A tubercular cutie. The brown wigs of tragic old women who have just been gassed. A genetic misprint in the family. An anonymous gift to the Salvation Army. I have even known Beauty to clothe itself in a mushroom cloud. There is no telling where Beauty will turn up in Time. That is what makes Beauty so dangerous. Beauty is a buzz, perpetually interrupting me, wherever I am, whatever I happen to be doing. Swimming. Scrubbing the toilet. Trying to sleep. Beauty might find me squatting in a desolate aisle of analgesics at the pharmacy, comparing brands, wondering if suicide would solve my present headache better than Bayer: the perennial problem of what the point of it all really is. They are related questions. I mean, if I were Leonardo da Vinci—which, sorry to disappoint you, I am not—just to be clear—I would draw a special Venn Diagram, illustrating that shady area where Art and Life intersect. I would call that enchanted region Beauty. Because Beauty sees to it that the mobile reception is always terrible, wherever I happen to be, and that the number is normally wrong. Hence, my headache. Even so, I will always drop whatever I am doing and search for a quiet area—a napkin, a notebook, a shoulder blade in an Arcadian glade—et in Arcadia ego—where I can, theoretically, return the call.
Eric Norris is the co-author (with Gavin Geoffrey Dillard) of Nocturnal Omissions, from Sibling Rivalry Press. He is also the author of Terence, Cock Sucking (On Mars), and Astronomy For Beginners, available on Lulu and Amazon. His work has appeared in: Ambit, One Poetry Journal, Trinity House Review, Mollyhouse, The New English Review, Impossible Archetype, Softblow, Classical Outlook, Assaracus, The Raintown Review, E-Verse Radio, Glitterwolf, and many other publications.
He lives in Portland, Oregon, USA.
You can follow him at @EricThomasNorr1 on Twitter.
