Aphrodite & Venus
and all Want-to-Be
Marilyn Monroes

Some call us man’s first cultured pearls,

goddesses first birthed from castrated genitals,

our all-seeing eyes of violet blue with traces of

emerald green, and our hair is like soft wet straw,

with traces of wild flowers,

we are known as special tongue-n-cheek divas,

which are sexually implicit phenomena and

repository of many a mortal’s dreams,

man has tried to carve our beauty into blocks

of naked stone, with a lot of arousal left behind,

almost like flesh, only cold instead,

even though our hands are penniless and empty, 

they are filled with man’s destiny to love and be loved,

so similar to the divine in repose, we lay upon rose

petals in our scalloped shells nibbling on poppies,

reading poetry and singing songs of naked love.

(This poem can be found in Sculpting the Heart’s

Poetry, Conversing with the Masters) at Lulu.com.

by Joyce White

Many of us would have ambivalent feelings about walking around nude yet those who don’t seem to have an alluring mystique about them. For women nudity is a state of mind. We have to bath, shave and perfume. For men nudity is a matter of comfort. Men don’t like to be restricted in any manner especially by clothes that button, snap or zip. I’m sure it was a woman who invented the tie. My advice to those who think they have to take off their clothes to be a star is, once you’re naked, what’s left to create the illusion? Mae West says, “Let em wonder. I never believed in giving them too much of me.” My mom always told me to never show “what I don’t have.” The human body has always exemplified a combination of joy, guilt, grace and mystique. Some of us are genetically built more modest than others. It seems to me nudity is an art many of us have to learn to accept. Streaking across a stadium naked may be more for shock than glory and it is just plain disrespectful to the teams playing. We humans have a great love for shocking the masses. Many of us also have a certain modesty probably gleamed from the the Garden of Eden times. It is thought that Christ once told his disciples not to worry about what they will wear; saying “Is not the body more important than clothes?” Matthew 6:25.