The club is small and dark and hazy
like the veiled comedy of minstrel performers.
Those dingy lights do little for the atmosphere—
dangling hemp from clouds of cigarette smoke.
This hole is filled with the classy of day and the
sassy of night—a real “blue material” kinda crowd.
Harry, the manager, after calling quarter and five,
booked some awful oleo acts just minutes before
“places!”
—The crowd sits on their hands ‘til they’re numb
and lame like the fish they watch flop on the boards.
Two acts down followed by some soot-covered
clown’s lazzo about who’s who and what’s what.
Give me a break! The crowd wants fresh fish to fry—
Girlies in pearlies with spun out legs that tower
the torsos they’re pinned to. Give them that
New York Style Cheese-cakewalk Variety Act!
The listless listeners of this K.A. circuit let out a
snake-like hiss, en masse. (The only show stoppers
are off the billing, stage left at some other club!)
The manager thinks fast like a quick change act—
Harry snatches a prop from the nearest kook—
In a long brown bathrobe, with a broad brown cane.
He hushed the crowd of loud, jeering jerks, in one
swift swoop of his leg-breaking, knockout **** called
The Vaudeville Hook.
Runner-up in the 2013 University of Indianapolis Poetry Contest