WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SMILING? BECAUSE IT'S ALL SO FUCKING FUNNY.

LIVING THE CIRCUS LIFE

No one stops to listen

for the hustle happening in the big tops

spread out all over town.

Ticket in hand thinking this is the way of the land.

Clowns and cops all wearing the same paint,

multicolored colored clothes with flat foot shoes,

while the trained elephants stampede over them too lost

to find the ticket booth for the poor,

who never get to go to the circus

unless they are the entertainment.

Timing and execution is everything.

Maybe if they collected the check

for that tap dance like ol’ Sammy Jr.

used to do a hundred years ago,

but no they get paid to stay poor

the big top performances are just life .

Let the dice roll then recognize that snake eyes

are looking out from all around

for that fresh meat to let rot for gator bait,

while the crowd laughs and claps

with all the action going on ‘neath the tents surround.

Untouched by the rackets

those in the bleacher seats

are thoroughly entertained

until a stray wasp cuts one down.

Then, it’s just another part of the show,

tragic only because it wasn’t written in sooner

didn’t hit a little closer..

We are, after all, all about interactive living,

who doesn’t like to gawk at another’s blood let loose?

Burn baby burn down the tents

But don’t stop the show because

it’s just as fun to turn on your neighbor,

or at least the stranger seated next to you

until the bleachers collapse;

everyone lands in a jumble

making it easier for the clown car to empty,

and swarm those wasps taking more than flesh.

Dignity has no place in the madness of the circus.

“Never mind, the collapse

they who run the show say,

doesn’t matter anyway

we’ll rebuild it all bigger, better

as soon as we quit laughing and start

buying better wasp proof clown clothes;

less can be done with more

as long as the tickets are sold undiscounted at the door.

It is a canvas sewers dream to replace everything once a year,

out with the new in with the newer perhaps two newers

and what do you do with what’s left over from the last time round

besides lay it out flat and fire it on the dry ground. Burn baby burn,

No one seems to miss the days

when one had to figure out a direction to take,

years before the big tops tents went up all over town,

no one alive remembers what it was like,

life in those black and white pictures

that hang on elephant ear lined concession walls,

where the herd goes for entertainment on a Saturday night.

No one knows that the safety of the bleachers

is just an illusion as they crash easily down

for lack of a nut and bolt to hold them together,

glue is good enough until it isn’t and then what tragedy?

Just throw up another bigger better brighter carnival

somewhere else in the lands where a single circus came round

for what once was just a show for entertainment.

© M Durfee

8.11.2014