Constantly Risking Absurdity
Constantly Risking Absurdity
Aug 18
What a great title this is!!! What a definition of our lives. I say this because my week is absurd right now. It started last week when Jason came cruising into the apartment in the middle of the day. I was sure that either someone had died or he had been laid off. It’s been 5 years since he has darkened our door home sick from work. He doesn’t get sick. I get sick. I come close to anyone in the county and I get sick. I’m still sick. He is fine now but I am still sick… The good news is that I have new windows. Because the only thing that can make illness more interesting is having to turn your apartment upside down and let strangers parade through the room to stare at you in your pajamas. Laughing and commenting about you in Spanglish, as you ever so delicately blow half your brains out into a Kleenex. Not really but you think they are, because we are all so self absorbed that we think things are about us. Especially the things we can’t define, can’t understand or can’t interpret. I feel that way when my nails are being done and Cantonese fills the room. My wedding anniversary is tomorrow. I propose a Gatorade toast. I’ve been reading poetry this evening. Can you smell it on my breath? I’m sleep deprived and dry-eyed and my fever keeps creeping up on me in the night. A friend of a friend died. I don’t know him but it reminds me that I can still feel. I ran into a stranger on a virtual farm who had both lost and gained a grandchild in one week. One was born and another is missing. Her mother is mentally ill and they just can’t find her. I went missing once. Life is strange. The second we get a good hand, someone reshuffles the deck just to keep us on our toes. God has to make sure we’re paying attention. I had ADD (Absurdity Deficit Disorder) but I’m all better now. Time is the prescription. It all makes sense now.
I shared the evening with uncle Lawrence tonight. Here’s what he had to say…
Constantly Risking Absurdity by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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 entrachats
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
