"circuses" poems
.
A hard-on
doesn't count
as personal gro
wth.If you want
to hear the pitte
r - patter of littl
e feet, I'll put s
hoes on my cat.
This isn't an off
ice , it's hell wit
h florescent lig
hting.How do I
set a lazer prin
ter to stun? I m
ajored in Libera
l arts. Will that
be for here or t
o go? Too many
freaks, not eno
ugh circuses. I
have a comput
er, a ******** a
nd pizza delive
ry .Why should
I leave the hou
se? Stress is wh en you wake up scr
eaming and you re alize you haven't fal
*** asleep yet. I like dogs too . Let's exch
ange recipes. And yo u r c r y b a b y
whiny- assed o pinion is? Al
low me to intro duce my selves.
Nov 1, 2014
Nov 1, 2014 at 2:00 PM UTC
The sun bakes down heavily on a plastic micro planet in Orlando, Florida
where crowded trams drop American bushels of tourists into an alien world.
Quickly fantasy comes alive
through a corporation of disguise.
The workers mask themselves in a drapery of familiar life
-like costumes to charm little children’s hearts.
They smile wildly, carving a clear dimple line on the but of their cheeks. Walt’s Disney World
must have driven every one of America’s circuses out of business.
The flying trapeze is too elegant,
people now want to be strapped in,
buckled up and whipped around
to forcibly experience the true velocity of entertainment.
Even the participant’s attire is geared for this third world oblivion. Neon ***** packs rest like bloated kangaroo pouches
on fat sweaty old lady’s round hips, their plump fingers
holding on to leashed harnesses reined to their child’s small chest.
This is vacation,
strangers of people in massive conglomerations
with confused expressions and burnt faces.
Even the food seems wickedly unnatural,
like an artificial order of burning plastic and sour dough surprise.
Waiting is the enthusiast’s pastime as parades
of anxious voyeurs are captivated by a trance
fixation of lights and whistles.
They line up like schools of lemming,
plunging on rides,
one by one.
This is the place
Where memories are made
And dreams come true
Sep 25, 2010
Sep 25, 2010 at 12:25 PM UTC
Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.
3.2k
i. arachnophobia; fear of spiders. more common in females than males, why at night you choke on the idea of her fingers on him, long and thin.
ii. ophidiophobia; fear of snakes, fear of being crushed alive by commitment, why in the mornings you never left your number, why you don’t call her back, why you regretted it later.
iii. acrophobia; fear of heights. why she stays out of circuses and away from people like you who would make her fall in love.
iv. agoraphobia; fear of situations where escape is difficult, fear of the plane that takes her away, fear of the open crowded space of your ribcage where paintings of her still constantly hang.
v. cynophobia; fear of dogs, fear of the graves where good noses could dig up the mistakes you have made, fear of a girl who made you want to get a puppy and settle down somewhere finally.
vi. astraphobia; fear of thunder and lightning, fear of being alone in a house that always sounded like both, the stormclouds of your histories always brewing behind flimsy doors. fear of finding her there and having her kiss you in the rain. fear she’d never come back to you again.
vii. trypanophobia; fear of injections, fear of drugs, fear of the doctor who looked into your heart and told you that your shaky hands and bad dreams were a sign that she’s crept into your sleep.
viii. social phobias; fear of social situations, fear of your father’s white knuckles on the wheel while he says, “no son of mine is a ***** like this,” fear of her mother’s judgement, fear of not being enough.
ix. pteromerhanophobia; fear of flying, fear of remembering how long it’s been since you actually felt alive, why you trembled whenever you held her tight, why one day she frightened you so bad that you left in the middle of the lonely night.
x. mysophobia; fear of germs. why you knew you’d only get her covered in dirt. why looking at yourself in the mirror always seems to hurt. why you will never be happy without being hers. out of this whole messed up world, she was the only thing pure.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 7:58 PM UTC
No trees around,
But there are leaves in the gutter
A thousand eyes in every home
& in every eye there is a storm
A Panoptic Design
Prison planet
Web net
Spider eyes glow red
Multi-layered
Multi-players
Virtual seams rip apart every dream
Virtual screams on virtual screens
Blood & circuses
Hive mind & mob body
In every crack there is a hole
& in every hole there is an eye
In every eye there is a storm
Your streets, the sky-not blind
A thousand eyes
A thousand eyes for every home
Digital trap. Don’t fight back
We wake to dream
We fight the sleep
Is there something we are missing?
5- You are alive
4-Go thru the door
3-What is your reality, really?
2-Yes, I’m talking to you!
1- Look up
Don’t look behind.
We are being followed.
Do you follow?
Do you mind?
Jul 2, 2016
Jul 2, 2016 at 3:28 AM UTC
In the beginning it was already the end.
That distant apocalypse was here all along,
Riding freight trains and eating the "trash"
There when they boarded up the Slavic village. There when the fresh prince gentrified Philly. So much apocalypse has been swept under the rug that the middle class can't keep their balance with the weight of the rich on their backs.
Stepping around the smoldering hell holes of Centralia, while the earth quakes from underground fracking. The ash and smog hides the glitter of aluminum in the air. The water laced with fluoride, lead, arsenic, cancer. The seas run black with greed. Designer labels sit passed by on goodwill shelves.
By the time it began, it was already over. Anyone who didn't notice yet, just had to go hungry first. Bread and circuses, just like Rome.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 8:42 AM UTC
Bread and circuses
Our world today,
In our sweet, free homeland.
We grow fat on breads
Pastries and sugars
And watch our
Sit coms on tv
Oblivious to the world around us
What's really happening?
Outside these walls of our free country
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 11:55 AM UTC
In the time of the Caesars
The Emperors played god-
although some of them were
most exceedingly odd.
The man on the street,
was dependent, for bread,
on the grain dole that started
ere Julius was dead.
The unemployment problem
in Rome was severe
- at recessionary levels
for year after year.
How to keep happy
those unemployed masses?
Put on a circus
and give all free passes.
There were Lions and Tigers
and men with black faces.
Gladiators were drafted
from men of all races.
Roman blood lust was sated
with violence and wine
and all went home content-
having had a good time.
That which made Rome great
by then was a memory .
But, thought too big to fail,
Rome didn't lack for an enemy.
There's a lesson for us
in that circus and wine.
Empires fall
and its just about time.
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 10:42 PM UTC
The yards are empty.
only dirt and other detritus
clutter the mid-morning landscape.
There are no children
outside laughing and playing
running red rover over
the black tops on Saturday morning.
There are no parents smiling,
leaning on the old siding,
while the funny false teeth
wearing grandfather
tells stories to the younglings
about the old days.
Silence is the norm.
The fish fries, family reunions,
fairs, carnivals, and circuses
no longer make this circuit.
The gas station, and grocer’s
are boarded up
leaving only a lonely trail of
house after house
sprouting weeds and vacancy signs.
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 12:21 PM UTC
a music box of magic words
of circuses, gruesome murders and monsters
a mad logic of connected disconnected things
held together by the drifting mists of dreams
first air and rainbows
destroying pious falsities, telling new tales
of many things to come, flying above the crowd
showing the blinding white distance ahead
of the two ice capped poles
past he various categories
like old people who die when the weather turns
yet there is a desire to summon and expect disaster
you've seen the show, blinding like the sun on water
matched only by the patience
of the floating fall of a ladies silk stocking
a music box that looks immensely vindicated
and in those precious seconds, these busy seconds
that mumble and murmur to themselves
of divine and temporal forces
tastes the whiff of immorality
that possesses that special skin
that cruelty of countless acquisitions
of alchemy especially its capacity to coach sorrow
to teach it to touch the regurgitated
inaccuracies of indentured truth
ah! the music box who returns the echoing roar
of answerless answers with questionable questions
yet inoculated and protected by the vast pleasures
that somehow conceal themselves within the music box
in its rhythms and its clock-work metal innards
cancel out any pain and the half closed eyes that stop the heart
shatter the sky
shower with an avalanche of magnetic attraction
the magic music box, the magic music box
Pandora's magic music box
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 10:55 AM UTC
ignorance follows me around every corner
and i’m tired of running away to avoid it
i live in a world where post-rape abortions must be proven to be legit
where ****** is advertised to come with a free **** kit
this world is a place where musicians make more than the president
and foreign residents with phd’s are struggling to make ends meet
a continent is left to die to the beat of the greed and street crime
the faces of the dying people don’t look like mine, so i guess it’s fine
i can carry a television with me in my pocket and make phone calls on it
there’s a hit reality show about a five year old girl dressed up like a corner ***
child molesters are taking fashion notes for their dungeon homes
fairy tales are profitable and everyone is worried about a zombie apocalypse
the living dead exist miserably in mass housing and arthritis has destroyed their threat of violence
we are now split in a rational debate over fulfillment of two thousand year old myths or if aliens will come back for us
and a man gets top billing in a national political conference to talk to a chair about war and the capital deficit
actresses are paid thousands of dollars to put make up on and get punched in the face
gladiatorial arts to amuse the masses resurrected for the television age
bread and circuses but there’s no bread left so let’s give them a show
i’m rambling like a crazy man but i don’t see the cameras rolling so it’s all for naught
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
You can run away from bullies,
Go home after school and rest assured you're safe
From whatever torment they may bring,
Whatver distress they inflict upon you.
You can turn on the lights when it's dark,
Illuminate rooms so you can reaffirm
That your closet doesn't have a murderer in it,
Or that dust is the only thing residing under your bed.
You can run inside when it begins to rain,
Cuddle up in bed with tea and listen to the thunder
As a storm rolls through your neighborhood.
You're safe and sound under your comforter.
You can close your eyes in scary movies,
Plug your ears, hide behind a friend.
You can say "It's all fiction, it's not real."
Because that's true. Movies aren't, no matter how convincing.
You can avoid circuses
If clowns do not delight you.
You can abstain from seeing their big red shoes and noses
As long as you do not attend a circus.
You can defeat most frightening things within your life; Don't acknowledge them, abstain from encountering them, conquer them, reduce them to nothing.
The most frightening thing in my life is myself, and I cannot simply go home, turn on a light, or avoid a circus.
It is always me, myself and I cannot simply pretend I am comfortable with always being in the presence of my biggest fear.
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
Upon a blazing dream lies a girl I used to know
Deep green stare and a paralyzing touch
She cut herself with the edge of broken glass
For within her soul was a sin she knew too much
She played with fire on a long black rope
Outside circuses that demanded money-throwing crowds
Walking through unfolding walls and closing doors
Throwing blinding stares and deafening sounds
She traded whiskey for a kiss from the ocean
Like a gypsy making money for the poor
I turned my eyes for a second and she was gone
Gone to wander within the reaches of the ocean shore
The sky grew darker, the clouds turned into mist,
Below her feet lay a wooden creaky deck.
She rowed for years as her hands soaked up her agony,
She rowed and rowed into an unforgiving black.
Spirals of light went off within her mind.
Her eyes opened and closed to a distant growing flash.
Cocooned upon a tiny open boat invisible from land,
She listened to the thunder's deadly roar and slash....
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 7:33 AM UTC
Main road marked on all sides
By small shops
Vendors sell bananas
Banks are centralized and closed
No corporate vulture multinationals
Except the one I chose
To make a living representing
My empire’s softest power plays
The spending, buying, mass consuming,
Wifi access money maze
The neoliberal colonizing
Culture shocking tidal waves
Still ebbing in the rolling hills
And crashing in the daily pills
The vivid dreams dissolve and fade
Digesting final three square meals
And learning what it means to be
A self-sufficient person
Goods and services exchanged
At rates that make my head spin
Topsy turvy circuses
New temples to the excess gods
Converting them as we decline
To little more than human lives
Devaluing as dollar signs
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 12:35 PM UTC
silent tears burn
angry nightclubs with unconscious menageries of orange childhoods
drink the attention
artificial gleaming bodies licking knives sang burgundy 'glow' covers
winter answers ragdolls with drowning voices and double standards
aged sunrises shatter china wisped from personal dedication doodles
reminiscent of rain
seas mercilessly embellished with stinging souls from superficial smiles
suffered pink
writers cry ink and scream distant songs of artists life past
long understood things
premature custom murders and the crackling of caught conflagrations
professional bullets to multiheaded actresses pulsating lies
sacrificial circuses with retro dancers
bold riding on evident songbirds
choice movements ignored the colored flame
nonexistent pronouns
alien campaign
slithering sunlight control
impermanent celebration sending snuffed cries to insult children who struggle with melody and shed vines of saved unsure crime and unknown attraction
lost passengers with incorrect guestimates and impossible dreamlike stabs
honest as snakeskin
court born with salt and glitter
king calming tentacled shakespeare
seasoned atmosphere
looker smile
hiding sweet prominence
grasp shadows
finger paint the walls,
dead brother mine
white flame realize light pain
coldhanded, rosy eyes
death slowing reality
stop
Apr 28, 2019
Apr 28, 2019 at 12:13 PM UTC
The first kind of carnival I encountered besides at the county fair was a huge one on the far outer reaches of the North Bronx on the way to Yonkers and White Plains call Freedomland.
I remember Disneyland and the black licorice drops there at the old time confectionary store. I hope to go to Disney World in my lifetime.
AS far as a regular circus I went to one when I was on a locked ward (we were let out under supervision) at the Lyons New Jersey UAMC. I was so desperately feeling like a failure due to confinement, and felt such hopelessness, that I contemplated joining the circus as a roustabout, but it seemed futile in the big picture, after all, I felt because I'd just be going from the frying pan into the fire success or lack thereof wise.
I think I noticed a certain clown looking at me out of the corner of his eyes and reading my mind there and letting me know I'd mad e the fright decision, and seeing a choice female acrobat stride by that reminded me that I wanted to start a family someday and stars of circuses are probably kept separate from the roustabouts.
I can remember going to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus with my mother as a kid and being thrilled at the taste of the cotton candy, the lion tamer doing his thing , the smell of the sawdust, and the ringmaster of that 3 ring circus and his whip. I was in awe.
In the meantime I was going to local carnivals and trying my hand with the pellet gun shooting sitting ducks that passed by in front of the king in the hall of mirrors, and going on the roller coasters and the Ferris wheel.
Later I went to the Barnum and Bailey circus as an adult and the trapeze artist, especially the female ones and , for example the parade of the Arabian horsed, thrilled me too.
I also took my foster son to a carnival and the sorta juvenile delinquent erstwhile deprived kid-he was, I though. I got a thrill out of him seeming impressed.
Enough of this, not that it's syrupy sentimentality, which I find enough in my poetry to have a sense of failure there but maybe kind of exercise in senility.
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
To whom it may concern:
Inaction speaks louder than Words,
And we were taken by contentment.
A powerful State.
Abused by those who will.
Against those who won't.
A bombardment of Distraction,
Covering fire
Stopping help from arriving.
From those other people.
Those others.
Somewhere.
If only the world were a place,
Where being content wasn't dangerous.
But it's not my problem.
Someone else will do something.
Yours truly,
Someone
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 1:54 AM UTC
Can you imagine?
The time when being ask
To stay after school
To clean the chalkboards
And erasers was fun.
Can you imagine?
Waiting for the teacher
To pick you to
Take papers to the principle.
Yes, that was special.
And i never thought to peek.
Can you imagine?
Learning to do the waltz
And the foxtrot in gym?
Boys on one side of gym
And girls on the other.
Pick a partner...
No, no, boys are yucky.
That was grade school
When they really were.
I can't imagine not growing up
In the 40/50's
With kick the can,
Home made circuses
And running down to a friends house
And calling,
Can you come out to play?
I can't imagine not having a memory.
By judy
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 5:30 AM UTC
I need to pen a poem about him,
As he wanders in circuses far and wide,
He makes the people laugh and
Cry in delight,
With his pink hair and red nose,
He is quite a sight,
He sometimes rests after a day of entertaining,
But after the facade is wiped out, only droopy lips remain,
He wonders how and when the sun sets and rises,
Like a lost lamb, he sometimes bleats softly to see if anyone hears,
Standing tall but feeling small,
He walks the paths of many gone before,
He makes the whole world laugh yet waits for the one who will make his soul smile
I see him,
And willingly meet him in the silence of the wired worlds,
Where words abound and sense of time is gone.
;)
© shaqila
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 8:56 AM UTC
Both Freddy and Frieda Flea
Had an itch and felt the need
To leave their home on Beagle back
So they packed their bags while Fido napped
They'd heard magical tales of the Big Top
Since their larva days on top the pup
They weren't here this time to clown around
As they found themselves circus bound
They hitched a ride in a hobos beard
Too no telling who knows where
But one thing that is perfectly clear
Both those fleas are outta here
Along the way they purchased needs
In a market place made just for fleas
Like underwear and mint toothpaste
Soap on a Rope to wash their face
Plus deodorant, quite a bit
You need a lot of it when you've got 6 pits
The rumor mill can be very mean
Fleas after all are fairly clean
After a day of personal shopping
It was all aboard for more beard hopping
Riding that hobo from coast to coast
In this their new hairy chateau
As circuses go they started their own
Advertising on the hobos back cause he never turns around
Over time their acts they've modified
As the flaming hoops set the hobos beard on fire
Now with Freddy as Ring Master and Frieda on trapeze
They are the Greatest Show On Earth, at least among fleas
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 5:57 AM UTC
oh, boy...
it felt like a circus
coming to the middle of nowhere:
my heart spit fire,
walked a tightrope,
performed a back somersault,
laughed with the sad clown,
ate cotton candy and popcorn,
did the cancan dance
and thumped home
percussively joyful!
(final notice: circuses move. the show must go on)
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
I'm an assassin
a man of ******
I will **** your memories
and place them
in the dustbin of time
Sweetness comes with sleep
memory is illusion
****** a thing of gripping hands
and gasping breath
the only thing real
is my hand
holding this pen
a dog's tongue
on my face
Summer has settled sweetly here
we enjoy the hours
take pleasure
in the taverns
and circuses of this life
Our merriment obscures
the steady progress of time
the creeping insecurity
of old age
But I say
let merriment prevail!
In the face of all these
bogus truths
I choose only
truth
a steely resolve
and what might yet prove
to be a vain hope
in eternity
Time tells its tale
and time will tell
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 9:38 PM UTC
If you aren't looking
you will never see them
hidden in whitewashed caste systems
forced to conform
to federal papers
which fit in a folder
that fits in a file
of an emaciated white guy
who doesn't fit anywhere
checking the boxes and "disorders"
voted on by
a majority of uncaught criminals
who are protecting store front lifestyles
while the real merchandise of their lives
lays in the back storage room
with the rats of their conscience.
They judge sanity
setting rigid walls
and hanging permanent badges on
Salvador Dali dream catchers,
borderless thinkers,
and geniuses
of the things not yet discovered.
Just because the gifted can not
or will not
stop thinking,
they are detained for their
Difference.
State Hospital No. 3
titles every page
framed in frayed edges
and unfrayed passion.
Lions of courage stand
with childlike joy
in traveling circuses
obliterating demons of oppression,
overwhelming reoccurring ECT...ECT...ECT.
An etcetera of living
beyond electroconvulsive therapy
where the spelling of ECTLECTRC is perfect
in its grammar and definition,
standing in banners atop
the wide-eyed portraited guardians
of institutionalism.
Glorious art shuddered on a curb,
lost and intended for *******
Thank God, beauty beholders come
in all ages of eyes.
14 year olds also find treasure
in garbage piles
clutching dearly to the feeling
that greatness lies in colored pencils
dancing on unusual stationary.
Edward Deeds
comes of age
in the same moment
as the scavenging boy does
opening the binders
on their inter-joined journey
36 annuals after dislodging it
from a leftover ham and rye.
A voice is unmuted
merely by being seen.
Revelation is given
by turning on the light.
Art, music and knowledge is infinite
when boxes are destroyed,
ignorance rebuked,
and courage is embraced.
Let us dare to never be
just what we know.
Let us live to be
what we have never yet seen.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 1:06 AM UTC
the eye sees
mathematics-coordinates computed
chance takes over
38-24-36
that's me -a ******
seeking shape in all its forms
flesh and bone structure
salt swamps silicon valleys
the lapping of tongues
with no specific language
just a flicker
its worth it all.
are you done, darling?
forever is where i've just arrived
unkempt brazen ****** animal
are you into **** gyms
don't stretch, break -a-bone
half yourself into acrobatic circuses
******* of delight.Remember boundaries
we are decent people.
touch me here
words stand up-ready?
our volcanoes
are locked up in traditional
cages, awaiting escape
flutter free.
Is this where geometric shape
take its chance.
How much? Travelers Cheques
are a decade old
I have a flight to catch!
Whats your name?
Ok! Forget it?
Author Notes
'I just took my mind back from the gutter for this cumpetition"
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 2:38 PM UTC