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Do not ask me who I am
Ask me why I am
For that will give me peace
An affirmation of my existence
Amongst the many others God created
A lamb to the slaughter?
who understands the sacrifice she is going to be  put up for and makes peace with it
A clown in a Circus?
One who's duality knows no bounds
A looming shadow?
One with a beating heart
A crow amongst the doves?
Shrewd and menacing
A grasshopper in an ants colony?
Who understands life best in the depth of it's ruins
silver light Sep 10
popped - out of the freakshow donning a ball of red on my nose, and blue streaks of paint running down my eyes. to you, i look like a jester - but,  these lines are but tears i couldn’t shed in the form of paint to me. in  fact, coat  my entire face with the blue dye for the stains of dissapointment that spread their invisible contagion across my face - like a bacteria infecting me.
under the pale paint that has concealed my tired skin is filth and dirt that no water can cleanse of.
so circus master,
do i stay a ridiculement in this hurting society
as this pompous identity that you forged,
hiding my true blemishes & stains or
be at liberty & viewed as
disgusting as i
am always
seen as?
Isaace Sep 1
Many laugh and many sing.
Many mouths sit agape with a cheek-to-cheek grin.
Fire swirls in the air as the acrobats swing—
Elephants weep, extravagently, with a tusk-to-tusk grin.

Amidst the cages, monkeys sit,
Faces pressed against the bars,
Rubbing their *******, dreaming of the trees
From which they would swing.

The freaks and the clowns sit amidst lurid lights—
Applying their faces with a cheek-to-cheek grin—
Constructing their masks, aided by the conjure of the magicians,
Those who draw salt from the air and harbour apparitions.

On stage now: Rotondo, the clown.
He dances, naked, with an ear-to-ear grin,
Rubbing his *******-belly, penetrating the mind of the Big-top ring,
Shrouded by the coiling laughter of an audience who yearn for the lights of deformed suffocation as Rotondo, the clown, paints a new face and ushers in a parade of freaks and deformed grins.
Jeremy Betts Mar 15
In this unholy battle,
We're acceptable collateral?
Why is this accepted?
It's not even ethical

Distract, create a spectacle
Like, oh I don't know,
A traveling circus
Call it a big tent revival

Keep your intellectual
To an abysmal level
View who believe you
To truly be the cesspool

From car to front door, time to mingle
A hive mind kicks in, single file
Resembling a slaughterhouse line
Cosplaying as unaware cattle

Only the needy need the label to be biblical
Instantly non consequential
Tell me, who's more feared,
A specific god or his devil?

Is it possible be honest though?
Any chance of pausing the show?
And collectively admit
The only truth is...we don't know

©2024
Zywa Nov 2023
The circus! Led by

the animal with the nose --


that can walk along.
Novel "Sexing the cherry" (1989, Jeanette Winterson), chapter 1

Collection "Specialities"
I was asked to explain what I mean by
"Dead Inside"
Typically I pawn off a joking motion
waving my marionette arms
to hide the rabbit in the hat
I adequately nick-named misery
because it keeps me company.
But if you sawed me in half
I'm quite certain all you will find
inside is a silhouette of  man
dancing around in a light box
doing the same fruitless jig over and over.
A couple of loose strands
and a few holes in the images
but the end is the beginning
and I am putting on a show for you all now.
The curtain is  my mouth
strung so tight you'd think it was a smile
And the words I say spin round and round
not a genuine frown in sight.
The light may be on inside
but the picture never seems to change
day after day,
collect the pieces off the floor
get up,
fall in love,
trip over the same type of girl
have my heart shatter into pieces
fall back down on the side of the road
remember how uselessly alone I am;
rinse and repeat.
This is paper thin love
and see through expectations that will not fail.
And it doesn't matter which way you spin it.
Its A tragically bad silent comedy
that doesn't need a narrator to explain
Just how miserable the person inside really is.
My heart is just a silhouette of a man
and if you think you can put some tangibility
behind it and not have it shatter into 1000 pieces.
Congrats you too have joined the circus.
and spin round and round in my light box.
Glenn Currier May 2022
There’s a concert in my back yard
solos and duets all day
a circus with acrobatics
clowns painted with reds, blues and browns
just feet from my perch
here as I peck on the  keys
the stars fly in
then flit away with ease
as if to tell me:
you can’t hold me long
with your seeds and your eyes
we are free to dive the skies.
With gratitude to John Wiley and his poem, “Kookaburra” - https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4547160/kookaburra/  - the inspiration for this poem.
Ryan Seth Cole Mar 2022
A massive weight shifts between my shoulders. It’s another fight, I am getting older. One more step, I grow bolder. See me out there, on that thin wire. Juggling my life at the same time trying to aspire. The pain didn’t set me back; it lit in me a fire. Your words sharp like a blade and my heart for hire. Elusive to the noise, I climb higher.
I’m eviserating the catacombs of an empire.
I am not trying to scale the ladder. I’m tearing it down to the mire. I am not dousing the flame, I am feeding the fire.

If we are walk this way, we need to dress the correct attire.

Clearly there is an internal fight, a struggle for power. I am not built to last, I eventually get tired. But the problems that disappeared just reappear taking on another form.
I do my best to keep my balance and keep walking this thin wire.

There is a silence in the noise of a mob
I can feel my heart. The story has to end or at least on my part. Will I hit the net below to sweet depart?

Or Shall I just keep juggling as I walk? It doesn’t matter if they think I am a fool; just as long as I do my part.
Life is a circus, living it is an art.


-RSC
Sleep brings relief and the hope of a new day.
TomDoubty Sep 2021
spiral learning
spiral failing
life is always spiral
spiralling
twist me up
spin me down
give me a plastic sequinned crown
now I'm the bloated circus clown
ha ha you laugh!
at my dripping mascara and baggy pants
my **** in a bucket of sawdust
a pie in my face

the poles are pulled
the big top falls

sobbing in the stubs
and sweet smell of candies
I lie suffocating
sad and bloated
a clown in a plastic sequinned crown
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