Constantly Risking Absurdity

(Circus by Marc Chagall, 1887-1985, Belarusian-French
artist)

Poetry in motion.

from A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND

15

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime¹
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 the day
performing entrachats²
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

~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born 1919, American poet, painter, and publisher

¹ rime – old spelling of “rhyme”

² entrachats – in ballet, a leap into the air where the dancer rapidly and repeatedly crosses the legs