Supercalafragilstic cool

[Cheri]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
[CONSTANTLY RISKING ABSURDITY]



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

 

[Pyper]

I once sat behind Jerome Rothenberg at a poetry reading and composed a haiku about his head. Does that have anything to do with this?

 

[Cheri]

Um honey, if I may call you honey, nope, not at all. Lawrence was one of those Beat poets.....you know like beatnik.

 

[Pyper]

Don't call me honey, honey.

Jerome Rothenberg was, next to Ginsburg, the greatest beat and projectivist poet of all! He was even on Jeopardy under a category about the beat movement.

I had to do a report on him for a poetry class. I was excited (in a dorky sort of way), when he happened to sit right in front of me at a recent poetry reading. *shrug* I thought a poem about a poet was related to your poem about a poet, even though I didn't realize Lawrence was a beatnik.

 

[Cheri]

I meant that your haiku about his head didn't have anything to do with constantly risking absurdity, but maybe it did.
*note no sudo endearments have been used in the body of this post.

 

[Pyper]

Oh, okay, I see. I was thinking on a much more literal level.

Although my haiku was pretty absurd. I can't recall it at this moment, but it involved a comparison with an artichoke...

 

[Cheri]

So then it did! lmao


Teasing.....

 

[Dillinger]

Let slide sweetly...

First you Howl Ginsberg then you post Ferlinghetti... *big BIG smile* Perhaps that calls for Kerouac in response?

"Let slide sweetly
the transformations
of the thinking"

Ever hear Neal and Jack and Me by King Crimson?

Neal And Jack And Me

I'm wheels, I am moving wheels
I am a 1952 studebaker coupe
I'm wheels, I am moving wheels moving wheels
I am a 1952 starlite coupe...
En route.....les Souterrains
Des visions du Cody...Sartori a Paris...
Strange spaghetti in this solemn city...
There's a postcard we're all seen before...
Past wild-haired teens in dark clothing
With hands-full of autographed napkins we
eat apples in vans with sandwiches ... rush
Into the lobby life of hurry up and wait
Hurry up and wait for all the odd-shaped keys
Which lead to new soap and envelopes...
Hotel room homesickness on a fresh blue bed
And the longest-ever phone call home.....no
Sleep no sleep no sleep no sleep and no mad
Video machine to eat time... a cityscene
I can't explain, the Seine alone at 4am
The Seine alone at 4a.....Neal and Jack and me
Absent lovers, absent lovers...