Thursday, October 1, 2020

clowns and elephants

in simpler times
there
were elephants.
there was sawdust and clowns.
trapeze artists,
who looked strangely
alien
with their muscled arms
and legs,
their foreign frowns.
in days past.
we'd sit in the stands and
ooh, and awe
at what went
on in the center ring.
the juggler act,
a man shot out of a cannon
flying towards
an old twine net.
a man on stilts.
a woman as large
as a small house.
nine midgets in a tiny
red car.
the smell was that of a
old cigars
and animals that couldn't 
control themselves.
men in shiny suits
sipping from flasks,
their girlfriends beside them
bored
and looking elsewhere.
there was
beer and nuts.
cotton candy.
we were too young
to be frightened
by a world that made
such things happen.

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