"Constantly Risking Absurdity", by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

This poem came from Ferlinghetti's book A Coney Island of the Mind. This poem is an image below, because the composition of the poem on the page is as important as the words.

In text, so I can read it on my BlackBerry.

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 the 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

It's a balance, a challenge, a dance, and a risk. Stripping open your heart and shattering the bulwarks, a plea for union, understanding, recognition. Possibly a prophet, more likely a fool. Writers write because they must. It's no profession for the restful.

The City Lights bookstore in San Francisco is one of my personal holy places, even if/although/because it is so ordinary, really, and there is no more magic in those floors and stones than in my own treehouse.