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
.....................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

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti