Ideal Is Nothing Poem by Michael Ardizzone

What is nature
but a buck's head
mounted on a wall
or a lonely grizzly bear
rummaging through trash cans?

And what is real?
Regardless it will watch indifferently
while we live gaily in movies
but commit suicide tragically
for no conceivable reason
just as deer freeze in headlights
to become entrails
to be cleaned off of chrome.

Ideal is nothing but the mask
we force a reality to wear:

Ideal is nothing but the make-up
on Marilyn Monroe the night she died,

or the way the lights shine
on a baseball diamond,

or the way a poem ends
when spoken, dissolving into the air
and not being forgotten.