A great many of my favorite authors are also poets, and if they’re not poets, then they’re as wordsmithy AS poets, and often they use snippets and quotations and poetry in their books, to head chapters or reference or set a mood. This one is in the endpiece of Sheri S. Tepper’s Sideshow. She’s a favorite because her books are NEVER predictable. I like predictability in my real life (to a certain extent, and even to a CERTAIN extent, if you know what I mean) but I don’t like it in my reading.* Anyway, this poem struck me like a bell. I used it in one of the pages of my collage book as well.
Man
by Koi Bashi
heaven longing ape
angel who stumbles
blind light bearer
who falls and fumbles
worshiper of error
seeker after truth
hurting and aging
lover of lovely youth
wild beast raging
craven and brave
freak of fashion
and custom’s slave
puppet of passion
lowest and loftiest
a sideshow gape
god’s fool, nature’s jest
heaven longing ape
For more wonderful poetry, visit the Poetry Thursday website.
*I don’t like it in my viewing either which is why I’m very hard to please with movies or television. Hollywood endings are almost always WAY too easy to figure out.