Formal Perception Poem by Ananta Madhavan

Sometimes I repeal the evidence of eyes
And play a ghostly game of consequences,
Imagining the forms of things in play
Within a replicated world of Plato or Pluto.


Sometimes I perceive something behind the forms,
Seeing people at a bus stop, for instance;
Should I assume a smear of socialistic unction
And wonder whither they are bound and why?


Should I not go beyond my perception of forms,
When I behold a life, a waiting waif or crone;
They are not made of stucco or of stone.
Let me leastways pass them by with feeling.