I have been working on the second stanza. The feedback focussed on the unevenness of the original; how it was more concerned with the tightrope walker than the audience. My intention had been to highlight that everyone of us is the star of the show but the spotlights shine on one person-for whatever reason and our triumphs are ignored or downplayed.
An Open Secret
The
tightrope walk is an open secret.
Physics
explains her graceful stroll:
a
taut wire, secured at each end;
tight
leather shoes to maximise the friction;
a
bent pole held in spread arms
to
lower her centre of mass
-which
at all times must remain over the rope;
plus
a head for heights is all.
So
she places one foot after another,
and
may or may not look down.
Devoid
of those fixed points,
we
walk a changing line,
work
for the minimum wage
when
the zero hour contract decrees.
Few
see us when we fall,
or
sense the small triumph of a day gone well.
Truthfully
we are the stars of the show,
but
the spotlights are on her
and
we applaud the steady, slow procession.
I think the idea of inserting a line break also helps to balance the poem. As I was saying last post it can be illuminating to play about with layout.I read once that part of the white noise you see on your television set when you remove the aerial is the aftermath of the creation of the universe. It inspired me to write this:
in
the white noise of the television
a
message from eternity
red
shifting across this galaxy
coming
to you through ever expanding space
I may have got the science wrong.
Here's Annabelle Chvostek jamming.
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