Jeff Wall (b. 1946) is a Canadian Vancouver-based photographer known for his large-scale elaborately staged back-lit photographs. If you’re on a smaller screen, you might find it hard to see the acrobat at the rear of the room.
ps, I am headed out on the road today, be back Sunday, maybe with a poem or two.
In the legion, by Jeff Wall
The ceiling is low for a backflip,
the space between tables narrow.
No plaques on the wood paneling
will mark the feat, nor medals,
crests, framed—those signifying
merely national importance.
And the denizens, sedate in their pints,
chips, talk, do not register it fully,
not yet, their attention glancing
off walls, each other, the down,
and happier, moments
of their lives.
It might fail, we don’t know.
Still, none of this can stop or slow
what will be. The war is over,
and the jets have retired
their maneuvers. Sooner (or later),
the circus does arrive—
to enact its defiances.
Thank goodness for the defiance of the circus and your poem.
Great opening line: "The ceiling is low for a backflip,"
I'm thinking about the circus - both the real and the metaphorical.