Friday, November 15, 2013

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.





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