Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ACTING, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ACTING, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the best sense
Last Line: And become.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Identity


In the best sense,
becoming another
so that there is no trace left
of what we think is the self.
I am whoever.
It is not gesture
but the cortex of gesture,
not movement
but the soul of movement.
Look at the earth with your left eye
and at the sky with your right.
Worship contraries.
What makes us alike
is also what makes us different.
From Man to Jokester to Trickster
is a nudge toward the deep,
the incalculable abyss
you stare into so it will
stare back into you.
We are our consciousness
and it is the god in us
who struggles to be in everyone
in order to be ourselves.
When you see the chalked form
of the murdered man on the cement
throw yourself onto it and feel
the heat of the stone-hard fit.
This is the liquid poem,
the forefinger traced around both
the neck and the sun:
to be and be and be
as a creek turns corners
by grace of volume, heft of water,
speed by rate of drop,
even the contour of stone
changing day by day.
So that: when you wake in the night,
the freedom of the nightmare
turned to dream follows you
into morning, and there is no
skin on earth you cannot enter,
no beast or plant,
no man or woman
you may not flow through
and become.





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