Mission Street Dances 2016

Poem used in “Bend Over Backwards” with permission from the artist.

Constantly risking absurdity

               and death
whenever she performs
          above the heads
                              of her 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 her 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 she’s the super realist
       who must perforce perceive
taut truth
   before the taking of each stance or step
in her supposed advance
    toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
       with gravity
                  to start her death-defying leap
    And her
    a little charleychaplin woman
         who may or may not catch
    her fair eternal form
       spreadeagled in the empty air
    of existence