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