"funhouse" poems
if life was like a carnival
and we drove on the road like we were in bumper cars
wouldn't we adapt to live in a place like that?
a place where the cars crash and slide into each other
a place where you shoot a target with a real gun and take it with you as a prize
a place where going into a haunted funhouse could mean the end of your life
should a creepy clown venture close enough?
wouldn't we adapt?
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 12:19 AM UTC
*shadows casting forward
pastel edges
of water colored nebulous scenes
once known
i fuse with deja vu
in its feather-like fringe
i beg for the meaning
of history reliving
perhaps it’s a maze
tho’ previously scripted
funhouse mirrors silently mock
our own carnival
or is it a wink?
the north star is nodding
a slight innuendo
we’re not lost at sea
perchance it’s a hint
it is all an illusion
a glitch in the matrix
the black cat walks by
i grasp for the answer
and peer at the ghostly
parchment paper dream
as it dissolves to thin air
©2018janetaylor
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 3:05 AM UTC
I’ve never understood the pull of the nightlife.
I was always content to hang in my cave and enjoy the homelife.
Every now and then I do wag my tail and purse the trail of the pack,
Always lingering right at the back of the queue.
I follow their scent when they descend into the night,
While they ascend the social status stairway.
From my perch at the bar I watch the social sheep dancing to the beat of popularity:
The girls show off their twirls and brunette curls,
Inviting you into the funhouse down under that never shuts for festivities.
The boys weigh up their options with the biceps on display and perfect quiffs held up by ten tins of hairspray.
Hunting through the flocks of feet trying to find themselves a piece of meat for an all night feast.
When he finally finds his muse he bites her lip and grabs her hair, pulling her in without a care about those who stop and stare.
They kiss for seconds and he whispers in here ear,
“I think we should get outta’ here.”
She giggles grabs his hand and leaves through the exit at the rear.
His friends give him a clap and cheer, whilst his jealous rivals sulk and sneer.
After a few too many drinks I leave through the front, holding my head low to avoid a fight.
Bearing the brunt of another unsuccessful night with no young light to take home and ignite.
I fall on my floor with a case of helicopter head as the room spins in circles and squares in front of my eyes.
My lasting thoughts are of the day ahead; hanging dry and feeling as if I’d rather die.
It's just another day in my nightlife.
Mar 31, 2013
Mar 31, 2013 at 4:30 PM UTC
These optical illusions
Create an optimal confusion
When eyes are a welcome intrusion
To the brain's inevitable conclusion
We stared into the mystic mirror
I witnessed everything I ever wanted in life
All you witnessed was just two people standing there
The transparency you cast upon me
Reminded me of how the plumes of **** smoke
Were never as thick as my problems
And as those clouds left my mouth and dispersed into the air
I saw your image
Preserved in briefness
It's a shame how my magician's mind
Summons smoke and mirrors
Nobody else believes me
But magic is the only way to explain you
The way you turned me invisible
Was spectacular
Your methods of sawing me in half
Certainly weren't natural
And your teleportation demonstration
Left me suspended in ice
So I guess I'm to Blaine
For the mirrors I erected
And the truth they reflected
Because now I'm lost
In what I refuse to call a funhouse
As I search frantically for some ancient tomb
That might reveal your brilliant incantations
Attempting to ignore the horrid revelation
That every spell I learned
Had been based in your arcane aura
And all the power I had gained
Had been based in your enchantment
I want a magician
Not an illusionist
So what does it mean when your illusions are so magical?
Jun 8, 2017
Jun 8, 2017 at 5:43 AM UTC
If I could look past myself to see the world around me,
I know I'd be a better person.
But instead, my thoughts create a light so blinding I have to put up shades that tint the world the color of insecurity just to see.
These shades, this insecurity, is like a funhouse mirror that works against you,
Making those around me immaculate Greek gods who stand a mile high
As I stand lower than dirt wondering how their flaws only add to their perfection while mine stand out like scars on every surface of my body.
But it brings with a comforting sense of consistency in an inconsistent world.
It wraps you in an embrace so tight it both soothes and suffocates you, but you can't bare to let go.
It becomes the overly understanding spouse you both despise and adore.
No matter how many times you cheat on it with false hope and cheap popularity, it
Keeps
Coming
Back
I'm so caught up in my past that I find myself walking backwards so I don't have to watch my future crumble around me
But I found that just because I stand still, doesn't mean time will do the same.
Time marched on and left me lost.
"Here and now" became "There and Then" and I found myself standing in the "Soon to Be".
I realized that at some point, my personality married the wind and left me in a gust that still leaves me cold.
A year ago I was asked if I knew who I was and I said I was like the one thing held constant in a science experiment.
As people were placed in the caged existence, a world the size of a petri dish,
I never changed.
I knew who I was
What I believed
If you asked me today,
I wouldn't have an answer.
One day I questioned reason and existence.
The day I looked to God and said "this can't be all there is, there has got to be more than this" was the day He sent me an instruction manual wrapped in a silver lining.
I was told to look for the best image of myself and work to obtain it
I found that it isn't easy turning the desert into the Garden of Eden
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 8:28 PM UTC
your words were so lovely
that i never once doubted them,
i couldn’t hear the emptiness
or read into the sugar coated lies
masquerading as sincere promises
i wrote them in cursive
and dotted the i’s with little hearts,
counting on the vows to hold weight
but when i finally tested them
by throwing your “forevers” into the ocean,
they did not sink to the bottom,
instead they floated right on the surface
your guarantees
were like funhouse mirrors,
i ran in one direction
thinking it was leading me
to where i needed to be,
but i came to a dead end,
trapped and broken hearted
with your voice echoing somewhere
“i cannot mend it”
i will not let my journal
turn into pitiful pages
filled with only your name
i will carry on,
bruised by your half-truths
and with eyes full of hope,
nevertheless
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 11:29 AM UTC
funhouse of self-reflection,
i indulge in your distraction,
make the best of every one of my heart's contractions,
to scintillate, to shine, to epitomize a refraction
that is all mine.
a start's best contender
to finish, always inclined.
for the heart's say is that gold is always underlined.
glitter of shimmer, of glistening hues.
what creator could produce formations as iridescent as you?
but coruscation of shadows, perpetually anew:
why do you always crack my mirror and skew?
mirror, mirror.
mirror of my mind:
tell me where it is that all my secrets hide?
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 11:17 AM UTC
I see my frame bent and bulging
Convex, concave, corrupt
When I look in the mirror
I'm never the same
I am pretty, ugly
Pretty ugly
It's like a game
Today will I eat
No, my distorted reflection
Is enough of a treat
Small chest
Huge ***
This funhouse is a barrel of laughs
Come on, try
What do you see
All I see is a girl in the mirror
I wish was not
Me
Nov 8, 2014
Nov 8, 2014 at 5:49 PM UTC
-
The concaves in the glass bowl and the style which it imposes to the
Food within it to warp and appear not from this world.
The spoons and how they surrender the same effect, curving my face
Into a funhouse punch line; I can’t help but smirk,
Which somehow distorts my features even more.
You were convinced it was necessary to serve me your best today,
Pulling out the stops and balancing uneasily on the aging stool that waits in the corner
Just to get out the “fine” kitchenware.
Soon it became routine:
I was over every day, not to eat, no; selfishness is a puzzle.
No, I’d sit at the table and bide my slender hourglasses, shifting a mind between
Taking you to the moon,
Or to the ceiling fan because my goodness it’s getting warm in here.
Planet under smoke, we end the day with a drop of manufactured whiskey
Dangling from the inside of your Swedish wine bottle set from India.
(Bends the droplets into squares)
Our sun is setting and the pictures on the walls fall asleep.
Jan 28, 2011
Jan 28, 2011 at 5:23 AM UTC
Of the five senses, touch was the first to go
When the rot set in.
Necrotic from disinterest; disused and numb,
A disconnected ***** a colony of one.
.
Then sound; your messages left unheard.
Just the tap tap tap of some manic mind.
No pause...just repeat; the eternal rewind.
Sleep starved, all words stick frozen in time.
.
For leading me into temptation; my gluttonous sins,
Taste and smell succumbed, then withered and died.
Staunch as a deacon, control finally mine.
The harvest ignored, bloated on the vine.
.
Only sight eludes my metal fatigue.
The mirror much stronger, it haunts and it taunts.
Its warped funhouse images all I can see.
The bully I made...this cruel double of me.
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 3:39 AM UTC
It's always you
My hornèd demon
I hold your hairy head between my legs
My head pounds as yours torments
Your forked tongue finds every opening
You slither hither; hypnotic dance
I forget myself. I forget what else
You love me deeply
Our twin flames flicker wildly &
Burst the sunrise
You wild beast of animal and man.
I will catch you if I can
You were my all, my reason for life
I once dreamed of being your wife
Stars fall like fireworks from the sky
But Night descends quicker than stars
Entranced, trapped, enslaved
Not love but tortured dreams
Your cruelty astounds me
your manipulation and slight of hand
The curve ball, the trick in your eye.
How do you do it?
Smoke & mirrors. All of it.
Here now, now gone.
So long.
Hear the echoes of the crowd.
Memories of your face.; Trickster grin.
And I, the fool born every minute.
And again, The Mask.
The mask we all wear, but tear off.
Your mask, you keep on.
Rip-Off
Under the smiles and grin.
The hornèd demon is reality
I think.
The animal that walks like a man.
A beast walking upright, horns gleaming
in the moonlight.
Pan Satyr, your Dionysian dream.
Your mask so sweet & smiling.
Your funhouse & shattered mirrors .
Your thousand faces laughing.
I’ve left it all-behind me.
© Lesley Wood
https://soundcloud.com/lescelin/mask-the-9deep-beat-squad
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 7:06 PM UTC
We don't have to wait,
Halloween comes every day,
Shadow figures on their way,
The side show
The freak show
The funhouse across the bay,
We go there on purpose every day.
My light is kind of
fading I can see it
in the mirror
I can't quite see my way
to make it there today.
Your flashlights
in this funhouse Darkness
continues
to light the way,
for lost and wandering souls
as it has every day.
Humor
Grace
The soul whisperer
A lone long walker
The warrior spirit
A solo ocean swimmer
The darting eyed organizer
with the heart of gold
A stand-up comic
The old old sage
willing to fight it out
in the bleakness factory
every day.
As I make my way
to the exit sign
I can hear the five o'clock
screams
the lobby scene
cops dragging
a woman
screaming my name
I go anyway.
For those kind souls
left behind
as
the listener hums a tune
in his own mind
closes the door
one last time
with a sigh,
finally
has left it
all behind
saying
a
short prayer to the passing
of time,
for those who put their
love and compassion
on the line
in every way
every day.
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 10:10 AM UTC
Loving me
Is like a funhouse
After the maze and work
There is merely
A blurred image of yourself
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 8:52 PM UTC
You see, I know a girl
She's quite beautiful,
She's very funny.
She loves everyone
And has no mistakes to be made.
But my mind,
A desolate, dark plane
Has taken this joyful girl
And twisted her so.
She became a darkness to me,
My mind hated the fact that she made me feel joy.
A brutal pit I threw her into;
Each time I close my eyes
She dies
over...
and over...
and over...
By my hands
An endless bloodspatter,
A Hell with no escape.
I want to **** her so bad
But why?
What leads me to feel this way?
Why has her image been so bent and misshapen?
It's as if I put her in a funhouse,
Amidst all the mirrors,
Twisting and turning her.
She is trapped inside my mind,
A place where she will die,
Brutally,
over...
and over...
and over...
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 2:50 AM UTC
nothing has ever given me a rush quite like leaving,
like sitting in an airport moments away from getting on a plane.
i’m a little scared of heights,
in the way that they make my heart go racing
and i don’t like feeling my pulse leave my chest,
but i’ve always loved leaning over the edge.
i’m scared of heights in the way that i’m scared of planes:
i love the concept and the purpose and the view,
but nothing scares me like going into airplane bathrooms,
when i haven’t slept in two hours too many
and the mirrors are like a funhouse from a scary movie.
airplane bathrooms are like a portal into the past,
except this time i can see every crack and fissure
and misplaced hair in the outline of who i’m trying to be.
i don’t like airplanes in the sense that time doesn’t exist,
that where you’re landing is different from where you were beginning,
that i can sleep for seven hours only to find out
that i’m two hours behind where i lifted off.
i’m scared of missing things, i guess.
i don’t like airplanes in the way that i’m scared of what lies ahead:
because i really like going,
and i really like getting there,
but landings make my ears hurt like hell and
takeoffs make my stomach churn.
i know where i am and i think i have a vague sense of where i want to be,
i know when i’m real and when i’m dreaming,
but it’s the in between that loses me.
i’m scared of the dark,
but differently than heights or flying,
because that’s just a loss of time.
i’m scared of the dark because it’s a loss of everything.
if you can’t see it then how can it exist until you’re
bumping your knees on coffee tables and stubbing your toes on walls
and the cat’s eyes are reflecting light from nowhere
and you’re waiting for the claws.
i’m scared of the dark because the dark is uncertainty
hiding all the truths that we want to believe,
because the dark is all the spots ahead of us that aren’t set in concrete,
because the dark is deep and suffocating,
because i don’t like not being able to see.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 5:36 PM UTC
The moves you made against your fear moved me to faith.
I watched through tears as you were saved -
the heroine of your own fairytale
facing nightmares to awaken the beauty they slept on.
You were candle-flame and made darkness your element,
quivering formlessly in all directions, then still
the moment you found your center to be where it burned the most.
You turned pain into a glowing power source.
You were my favorite self-love poem in motion,
one that dates back to 13th century Persia
about mirrors, and how the polisher of which took on the form
of moonlight itself, giving all it has
when no one was watching.
You poured yourself into that night
in a waterfall of polished movement,
shattering glass, dancing your way out of a distorted
reflection in a carnival funhouse of illusions
you were grown enough to see past.
From a distance, I watched you
transcend technique,
bend and shift through countless forms
as if through a kaleidoscope.
You filled my mind's eye.
I saw myself in your mirror,
coming face to face with every side of you
past and present, high-fiving one, embracing another
in celebration of your conquest.
There's a fighting word beyond our known language
for this: masakatsu agastu
or, "true victory is self-victory".
Fight the battles you need to finish.
I'll be waiting at the edge of my seat
until the house lights come on and the show
ends and the audience disappears,
leaving only us
in front of the mirror
you are no longer afraid of.
May 12, 2019
May 12, 2019 at 10:48 PM UTC
I drove to Judah's Funhouse Orchard
to pick my own apples
and build my own lavender dishes,
but I put my new friends in a -famous- basket.
Oh, how it overtook me with its windswept stories!
It told me of a fat, shiny snake,
but we were drunk,
and the only person at the party whom I cared about gave me a slinky smile
and told me to leave.
So I left with a hurricane in all of my pockets,
and I played darts with the basket's forgotten, fairy-dusted nephew.
Illuminated by a single lightbulb in a concrete cavern beneath my mother's kitchen,
I learned to give up my apples
and forget my lavender dishes,
because my crudely-woven drunken comrade
is now a shining sober picture
of my sordid, henpecked past.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 11:28 AM UTC
There are two sides to this,
this mess.
Two completely different reflections in a funhouse mirror.
There’s the part of me that hears you
Hears your sweet words
And sees your full, gorging desires.
Your dark eyes haunt me as I brush my teeth and feed my cat.
They are a twisted trick, seducing me to hopes and dreams.
Of us.
And I stare back into the mirror. And there’s the part of me that
plays along and continues to talk about romantic scenarios of us.
As if they’re actually going to happen.
This is the enlongated, blurry, barely discernable reflection of something
that doesn’t even exist yet.
And then there’s the squat, fat, ugly reflection.
The truth.
The truth is you’re going to smash these mirrors one day.
For good.
And I’ll be standing among these shattered ideals,
cursing your name and digging my nails into my palms.
But you won’t know me.
You won’t recognize the real, heart and blood girl standing before you.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 3:45 AM UTC
when i was eight
my mother and i
left my ****** father
after our bar play date
and here i am now
reliving their mistakes.
i wonder if they felt the same way?
i had a boy
who i had dreamt about,
who melted away my fears
and showed me how to be devout,
but i left him,
my willing victim,
for a man who breathed my name
and believed me to be the same age
as his brother,
his juvenile brother;
and he thought it was quite alright
to sneak a peek upside
my pleated skirt
with his camcorder
and sell what he had found to his friends.
boy, that's tough.
what i once thought was love
became a funhouse maze of
broken trust and confusion
mixed in with potent smoke
and i at seventeen became the underage joke
that he sat and laughed at
while i grasped at the ledge,
tried to pull myself up,
and the boy i had loved
heard about my new crowd
and left off to college without a single sound.
he wouldn't have me
and neither would the man
who choked me out with his blood stained hand.
now i lie in his bed and cry
for i have lost everything i had
all because a blue eyed boy
promised me everything he had
and i believed him.
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 6:01 PM UTC
Pressed shirts
And a pretty mouth
Laughing like lace and polite
Mirrors in every inch of every cocktail party
If you feel what im feeling
I can relate to you and know you (your lizard soul)
Finger nails being bitten while (calming your)
No one is watching (core )
Making a note to send flowers (your genitals)
to the sick
Pushing away the dawn-blue thoughts
Of mass agony
A stop sign is a stop sign
Clutching the noisy pills in a brand new purse
Wiping your hand before you meet the love of your life
And then some
(When you)
I’m trying to turn off (escape the)
all my mirrors (funhouse)
I’m stuck in my room (mirror)
On purpose (hall )
With my Toys’ R’ Us (How)
Chemistry set trying to come up (long)
With a way to infect the (does)
Choreographed planet with (it take you)
Asperger’s (to accept the new )
(distortions?)
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 27, 2011 at 9:39 AM UTC
A street, ruined by Council workers
Never to be repaired.
A church, the dominion and focal point
Where only Satanists laid claim.
Two shops, one sold rancid
The other, overpriced.
Five hundred people, bored and doomed
Loyalists, who took pride in their version
Of Pandemonium, of Lucifer's funhouse
Of this cesspool of glorified
Rubble, this wasteland
Where only those who had given up,
Or that knew they would die
Slowly and agonisingly should, or could survive.
One castle, where brave Normans
Would frown and disown such a place,
And leave, rather than stay in such a disgrace.
To this place and it's inmate's I say
"you are nothing if not ordinary".
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 4:16 PM UTC
This poison you feed me
This head wound
Inflicting and compounding;
You will never understand
You size me up
In funhouse mirrors,
Tape measures all stretched out
Because you hate me
And so I cry
I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry I’m so big
I want to be small
Teach me to be small
Or, instead,
Teach me not to have a face
So you do not see me anymore
Please
The sweetness of a dehydrated body,
Tired, weak, blameless,
Addicted
Downing only buckets of saccharine hatred
It smells like cancer and bubblegum,
And that’s just as well
It tastes like
Blood
Sep 4, 2024
Sep 4, 2024 at 12:01 AM UTC