With hand unsteady, <br />I stop <br />at the first line’s edge of a jagged poem, <br />looking down <br />its precipice. <br /> <br />My foot slips, <br />over the period’s pause <br />the grim rim of its ledge, <br /> <br />And without hesitance, <br />like a dangling participle, <br />inhaling a breath, <br />I grab a vowel, <br />and a bird, <br /> <br />Tie a rock to my foot, <br />growl <br />and in an arc, discarding all I know <br />leap from the cliff. <br /> <br />Measuring madness by meter, <br /> <br />I plumb the vacuous page <br />crashing ruled lines <br />and fine edges, <br /> <br />In cursive circles <br />of tear-splattered rage, <br /> <br />To where I land, <br />Once, having hit bottom, <br />seeing the skin pared, <br />and the soul, <br />splayed open, <br /> <br />In the uneasy silence at the end <br />of the poem’s reading, <br /> <br />Flirting with its fear, the crowd <br />shift in their chairs, coughing, <br />their pensive eyes dart <br />like cows before the slaughter. <br /> <br />Then, amid the applause, <br />I dance, like shiva, before the flames <br />And amid a crowd of upheld hands, <br />I enter the abyss that draws us here, <br />sitting around <br /> <br />This axial loneliness the world turns upon.<br /><br />John Tansey<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-abyss-of-the-poem/
