[Bluejay]

They think I’m mad.

Tentative steps onto
a tenuous wire,
pole in hand.

Wobbling.

Halted, I clear my head
of wayward clouds,
passing at this height.

They think I’m mad
but they don’t see.

Feet bare on
cutting wire.
Stripped of moral fiber.

Naked.

Shaken, I sense the wind,
the sudden shift,
once buoying my feet.

They think I’m mad,
but wish me well.

Eyes beyond
the abyss,
to the far side, shrouded.

Alone.

Undaunted, I make small steps
And try not to look down,
Safety net gone.

They think I’m mad…
Maybe they’re right.

[Lubesh]

Undaunted, I make small steps
And try not to look down,
Safety net gone.

They think I’m mad…
Maybe they’re right.

But, when you get to the other side no one will ...only you lol? Unique and entertaining poetically speaking. Nice write.

[RENA HANDS]

Feet bare on
cutting wire.
Stripped of moral fiber.

This is my favorite! Enough typed on this EXTRAVAGANT oddity! Then your work and the postings of others of this site is wickedly BRILLIANT!

[Bluejay]

Thank you both.

[Rain]

Wow, that was fantastic. A brilliant idea and you executed it amazingly. Nothing but praise from me, great stuff.

[Bluejay]

Thanks.

[Vorcla]

Well, that was interesting. A little edgy, but the imagery is brilliant. Nice job, 'Jay.

So you're an accomplished poet, too? I feel so inadequate...

[Maylar]

Should I reprise the praises of others...yes. Will I do it...well, yes. Dmn, it’s quite hard to comment on something great, when somebody did it already, saying mostly what you would say...curse of a good written poem. It’s too good to be just said it’s good.
But it is good...it’s more than good, it’s quite special. So instead usual thoughts, I will tell you a short story...
...
Once, by the course of my dad’s work, I visited one country in South America...I was a little girl, no more then five at the time. The country mentioned was and still is, quite well going (not to say: rich), which was not the case with their neighbor, who, beside the poverty, had to deal with sort of a civil war.
Just a few miles from the place my family was settled, was a big, great canyon. Over the canyon, there was a long, long thing, locals called the bridge...it was no more then few connected metallic ropes, looking like a sort of spider web over a deep rapture.
My sisters and I wasn’t allowed to get near it (not that we desired)...beside the danger, the canyon presented the part of the border between those two countries. The “bridge” was a leftover, from the days those countries were one, more then fifty years old. Nobody protected the border on that point...nobody thought anyone would be crazy enough to try passing it that way.
One day, my sisters and I played on a little hill beyond the house, and hear people screaming and yelling...few shots were fired. It was more then scary, but we were puzzled and wanted to see what’s happening (children survive their childhood, mainly because heavens protect them, I think)...So we climbed the three.
And saw: there were people on the “bridge”. Two adults, three children, like my sisters and I was at the time. Later we found out, adults were brother and sister. Children were woman's children. Their father died in the war and rest of the family decided to escape.
Connected between with some ropes, family slowly moved. Man walked first...two of the children walked between adults, and third hanged from his mother’s back, in something similar to backpack. Mother went last.
Firmly gazing into the other side, they clenched corroded rope while “bridge” shook wildly under their steps.
One wrong step and all of them would end up falling. One part of the rope eaten by time, and they would meet their deaths.
On the other side of canyon, soldiers or guards showed up...they had guns in their hands (I saw real gun first time in my life then, even from far). They fired the shots, in the air, as a warning...but even they hesitated to shoot, when family came to the middle. They just stood, watching, as the crowd, gathered from the other side of canyon, stood and watched.
I think it was something human, something no war or any other thing can erase in people...they just wanted those people to cross...not to fall, not to die in abyss...in the same time, they looked at them as madman’s, both sides.
To shorten this, they crossed. As a part of the story, it would probably be more interesting that someone at least slipped...but, as life is often duller and more merciful then stories, no one has slipped, no part of the rope broke... today I still thank heavens for that, as people standing on the both sides of the canyon thanked then.
When they crossed, people start cheering and clasping them on their backs, laughing, congratulating them. Family gave only faint smiles and man murmured something.
Later, my father, who was in the crowd, told me what it was.
Man said:-You all think we were crazy to do it...and we were. But we had to.-
Soldiers on the other side of the canyon yelled something, fired few more shots in the air and then, after all, leaved. I think they were relieved too and it was only the show, not to look like the idiots after all.
Family (adults) were arrested, children sent to some nunnery orphanage, but only shortly...somebody managed to get them out of prison and orphanage and probably the same somebody helped the man to get a job in the local farm...my mom used to buy vegetables from them, so we often saw him, on the breaks from work, seating on the shaded wall with the rest of the workers, smoking a cigar...a slim man, with skin burned by sun, waving his straw hat in attempt to cool himself...his dark hair moving under the wind hat created and cigar smoke flying around him in impossible shapes. His dark eyes, gazing into the sky. Eyes of man crazy enough to cross the canyon on the rope.
We never seen anyone else of the family, and left six months later...but as to my knowledge, they lived peaceful lives and I hope they still do.
But when I picture them, I always picture them clutching those ropes, hanging between sky and the canyon, between heaven and hell...gazing firmly into the other side.
Crazy people, by the opinions of crowd. Crazy by their own opinion. But they had to do it.
...
Bluejay, your poem reminded me on this, after a very long time and I thank you for it. It helped picturing that family again, clutching the ropes, hoping to pass and survive. I know you meant it as a metaphor (great one, too), but sometimes, life just finds the example for everything.
Great work, either way.

[Venomous Vixen]

Amazing work here, man I have missed out on some of the poetry around here lately. I enjoyed the surface value of this as well as the depths I seemed to be able to get lost in... so many ways this can be applied, all equally jarring (in a good way). The image I got was crystal clear, teeter tottering at insane heights just trying to make it to the other side, like anytime we reach for something new, or make that leap away from the old. One of my favorite poems from you to date, perfectly done.