Male Model Leaning Against A Tree: Poem by Charles Bryant

Male Model Leaning Against A Tree

(Photographic Still Life)


standing against the trunk and drawing strength
from rasp of naked bark against his skin
he sensuously bathed in full sun's glare
absorbing health from that carressing light,
heat of the eye that viewed him from the sky.

the camera's eye, unfolded heart of the rose,
from the heart of its petals patiently watching
receptive tender organ fragrantly blooming,
saving for a time when he shall be old
this vision of the meaty strength of youth,
sinecure of summer, sun and eye.

carress of grass beneath his unshod feet,
cool silky blades tickling his naked toes
force ascending thru him earth to sky
to branch into the branches of the tree
waving and twinkling in the heated breeze
then out into the atmosphere, then free,
escaped into the universe at last.

it took him with it as it blazed along -
rather his spirit, free now of the flesh.
his body was the conduit, muscle bone
and skin part of the living substance which
was tree, his sap the tree's sap pushing upward,
outward in all directions rocketing
energetic movement from his stasis
locked into the universal power,
root power that never dwindles, never passes
even when the tree and we are gone.

then seated amid shrubbery, rustic king,
power of this clipped suburban woodland,
smile benign, muscles stretched relaxed
sensing already the adoring years
when he is pinned into a magazine,
icon, boundary lord, a latter Greek
aware of his own body and the gaze
of coming decades - how could he know,
he couldn't possibly know that this his image,
this one and the other, flashed upon
a flickering silver screen repeated in bedroom,
study, living room, would bring delight
to those as yet unborn when he posed here.

we feel his power and his presence, sense
his joy (tinged perhaps with nervousness?) -
but no, there is no doubt upon that open face,
that easy muscularity relaxed
absorbing all the summer and the light
thru naked flesh, watching the one who watches,
we who thru the cameraman observe
what he desired above all else to show:
himself, the curve and mound and length and flow
of flesh, desirability wanting
to be desired, admiring us who must
desire his form, breathing incarnation
of the god from which all gods derive
and have their strength, source of their endurance,
living mental entities, sculpted psyche.

(Although these two pictures were published quite a few years ago, the subject is still alive at age 70. The pictures were taken from Tim in Vermont's Vintage Physique website, an excellent resource for the male model magazines of yesteryear. I have of course doctored the pictures for so-called decency's sake - not that there is anything indecent about the male body!)

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• muscle
• mags
• male
• model
• leaning
• against
• tree
• charles
• bryant
• english
• poetry
• spoken
• word

[johnknight999]

that's how I looked the day i squirted out the womb

[brychar66]

You must have been a beautiful baby :)

[thienmodel]

i love model like this

[brychar66]

;) yes he is great

[algabal]

Your extreme sensualism is very powerful Charles, and as usual your poetic feeling and choice of vocabulary are impeccable. But I wonder if there isn't something more of artifice than Greek splendor in these photographs.

[brychar66]

Thank you Dominic. Well I suppose it's hard to feel natural with a camera pointed at you, especially with no clothes on! But he seems to have carried it off pretty well. I love your phrase 'Greek splendor'. Charles.

[autumn1942]

Oh Chales how wicked!!!!!!! We love you  in Canada!!!!

[superdooperstupor]

Among the most beautiful descriptions of male sensuality I've ever heard/read. The sequence of images mirrors the text. Firstly,the model is bathed in bright sunlight except for the shadowy semblance of a fig leaf strategically placed. As the poem progresses and acknowledges how even such a luminous beauty can be worn by time,like the pages of those magazines for which he posed, the nude eventually appears seated, still alluring, but gravity and the shadows of overhanging leaves portend decline.

[brychar66]

haha thank you very much but that sounds like spam to me :)

[juanarm]

thank you rustic king

[written12]

Well, Charles, we always knew we could count on you to draw something poignant and spiritual from such a photograph. The poem rouses such a mixture of feelings- the eternal power of beauty and that melding of the physical with the spiritual. But I can't help feeling so sad at how time tames and finally vanquishes us all. In the Met last week the beautiful Byzantine faces stared at me from across a thousand years. What sense can we make that such people are brought to life only to vanish?