POEM - At Least the Loser Goes Home

Honesty

Played like a chump

At the carnival

Four tries for a dollar

And beat by the fifth

This one was hooked

By the allure of an easy win

Customers soon find

A too soft ball

Inflated on lies

That bounces and clatters

Off heavy steel milk bottles,

Unmoved sentinels of deception.

Frosted in merry December

By the cake man of winter

The patrons shuffle

Chilled and solemn

Shuffle on and on

In shells of frigid wool

Feasting on grease cart pastries

Whose only virtue is warmth.

Every booth is the hard sell

Each named “Rigged” and “Crooked”

Though sometimes spelled in other letters

Surrounded by fetid hot carriages

The only source of nourishment.

If the old man who owns this life knew

Perhaps there wouldn’t be this decline

Brought on by bad lives

And low expectation

Each beat down

With each heavy mile

Until each sings the same song

“A Carnie till I die,

a Carnie till I die . . . “

An old pipe organ

Plays this old song

To many different tunes

But

No new words

Are ever written

Except at the end

“The Carnie died at dawn,

the circus has moved on . . .”

A mound of indifference left behind.