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Tightrope Walker
Tightrope Walker
Source: Bing
Constantly Risking Absurdity(#15)
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
anything
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 from A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems copyright 1958
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Source: Bing
Ferlinghetti's poem has an uncanny resemblance to alliterative/accentual verse. Not every line of the poem is double stressed, alliterative, or syllabic. But he uses this style none-the-less to help him suspend the reader, then cast the reader's gaze over humanity from a height.
He seperates his lines not by a count of syllables, but by the amount of stresses. If one were to listen to the audience while watching a high wire act, one would notice that the audience is held in suspense by the theatrics of the performer.
The performer sways back and forth, sometimes it seems he is about to fall, and then he regains his balance, moves forward a few steps, and then sways once more. The audience responds wth surprised inhalations during the swaying and relieved exhalations after his balance is regained.
Ferlinghetti uses his strongly stressed line to begin the poems sway. The reader inhales.
Tightrope Walker
Source: Bing
Constantly Risking Absurdity(#15)
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
anything
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 from A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems copyright 1958
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Source: Bing
Ferlinghetti's poem has an uncanny resemblance to alliterative/accentual verse. Not every line of the poem is double stressed, alliterative, or syllabic. But he uses this style none-the-less to help him suspend the reader, then cast the reader's gaze over humanity from a height.
He seperates his lines not by a count of syllables, but by the amount of stresses. If one were to listen to the audience while watching a high wire act, one would notice that the audience is held in suspense by the theatrics of the performer.
The performer sways back and forth, sometimes it seems he is about to fall, and then he regains his balance, moves forward a few steps, and then sways once more. The audience responds wth surprised inhalations during the swaying and relieved exhalations after his balance is regained.
Ferlinghetti uses his strongly stressed line to begin the poems sway. The reader inhales.