not even Crying save me

Slapstick



If there are angels,
I doubt they read
our novels concerning thwarted hopes.

I'm afraid, alas,
they never touch the poems
that bear our grudges against the world.

The rantings and railings
of our plays
must drive them, I suspect,
to distraction.

Off-duty, between angelic –
i. e., inhuman – occupations,
our slapstick
from the age of silent film.

To our dirge wailers,
garment renders,
and teeth gnashers,
they prefer, I suppose,
that poor devil

who grabs the drowning man by his toupee
or, starving, devours his own shoelaces
with gusto.

From the waist up, starch and aspirations;
below, a startled mouse
runs down his trousers.
I'm sure
that's what they call real entertainment.

A crazy chase in circles
ends up pursuing the pursuer.
The light at the end of the tunnel
turns out to be tiger's eye.
A hundred disasters
mean a hundred comic somersaults
turned over a hundred abysses.

If there are angels,
they must, I hope,
find this convincing,
this merriment dangling from terror,
not even crying Save me Save me
since all of this takes place in silence.

I can even imagine
that they clap their wings
and tears run from their eyes
from laughter, if nothing else.




Wislawa Szymborska



Know that movie where the front of the house falls on Buster Keaton, except he's in exactly the right spot so that he ends up standing in the open second-story window with only his hair messed up?



According to some book, he did that, for real. No stunt man, no special effects. And of course! It's easy, right? You just measure it... and then maybe measure it again just to be sure.

But would you do it?

I admire that confidence in the laws of physics (not to mention his set builders). I think we have to celebrate these moments where the rational parts of the brain (cerebral cortex?) manage to make the stem say "uncle" at least for a moment. The results are always spectacular.