RiskingAbsurdity.github.io

Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

   Constantly risking absurdity
                               and death
     whenever he performs
                         above the heads
                                        of his audience
 the poet like an acrobat
                   climbs on rime
                             to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
                         above a sea of faces
          paces his way
                       to the other side of day
   performing entrechats
                        and sleight-of-foot tricks
   and other high theatrics
                           and all without mistaking
               any thing
                        for what it may not be
      For he’s the super realist
                                who must perforce perceive
         taut truth
                   before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
                       toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
                         with gravity
                                 to start her death-defying leap
      And he
            a little charleychaplin man
                                 who may or may not catch
            her fair eternal form
                            spreadeagled in the empty air
                 of existence