Author Information
At Corinth: Kallos The Artist
They call me Kallos---but the look of me
disproves the appellation's accuracy.
Your question is well put: Why do I write
about the girls, enslaved to lust, by night?
In verse, or prose, who else might speak for them?---
those whom self-righteous citizens condemn:
young harlots, actresses of fantasy
(performed in shabby buildings on bare stages),
or lovely models hired to pose a look.
Each one of these is somehow beautiful,
despite her circumstances; and her soul
is precious. So I bring them to my pages---
almost enough, now, to complete a book---
where they can frolic in my poetry.
I do not watch them like besotted herds
of groping men. I need only a glimpse
in passing, to acquire the needed words
without providing profit to the pimps'
wallets (each one, a filthy beast that stinks,
unworthy to come near Gazelle or Minx).
Beauty, itself, needs no pornography
to be chastely described erotically.
Their smiles, or somber gazes, are preserved
in these lines as sweet gifts quite undeserved
by me: I do not suffer as they do,
and thus can only share with them (or you)
these records of a moment or a glance
brought to me by the random browse of chance.
Starward
[jlc]
