Long Barkers Poems
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The flags are waving brightly,
hypnotizing the naive,
they shimmer like carnival balloons.
There are merry andrews waltzing,
to the themes of marching bands,
they’re camouflaged to blend in with the moon.
The party’s getting started,
so we better get in line
- the wind is breathing something like a sigh.
The smell of cotton candy
drowns out the barkers script,
and multicolored lights announce the mood.
There’s rain off in the distance
- you can feel on your skin
- the children refuse to stay in line.
Dogs are barking somewhere,
and lanterns dance like birds
- there’s nothing left to do but step in time,
two, three, four.
The tent is Chinese silk,
as silver as a coin
- acrobats take tickets with their lips.
The sawdust smells like bacon,
and the seats are way too small,
but the crowd is pushing in
because red rain is falling.
Elephants turn like dancers,
and trumpet to the night
- the sound shakes the world like my alarm.
Another ho-hum morning,
soon the sky will tell a lie,
- that lemon light has something to proclaim.
My bags are packed for boredom,
the trip will last all day,
- there’s nothing left to do but step in time,
two, three, four.
I Watched While the World Slept
The simple minds are sleeping
On the threshold of the moon
While nocturnal wolves are weeping
None hear the barkers swoon
Darkness is uncertain
Most will never see The other side of the curtain
Yet I’m awake perpetually
Miles of asphalt vacant
It belongs to me
When the sun runs rampant
I let go reluctantly
Dying quasars gleaming
Exclusively for me
A million suns rotating
Under weight of gravity
A sleeping world doesn’t see
When my day has begun
Confined to solitary
I have become undone
The night belongs to me!
. *a*
. * *true*
. to be happiness
. filled to *** blithe
. brim * float* /
. / in the blue /
. / **sky* /
. / / / rise
. / / / balloon
. / / rise
. / / /
. / /
. /
. /
. ****** /
. *************** /
blot out, oh blot out the sun in the sky
fill it with rainbow, carnival prize..... ***
weep not, oh weep not, my child LOOK HIGH... in the*
for all that is goodness does come from the sky..... the arms of
*a warm
wind
whose puffed out cheeks give babies grins /
barkers balloons loose from the fiesta /
flying to? Flying toward?? /
it's anyones guess /
********
**********
.
Contest: Happiness is a Balloon
Poet: D. Guzzi
7/18/11
I watch carnival of carnivals quickly unfold
intense barkers are yelling as if their large bears are gold
seeing ultimate thin man and fat lady never gets old
fortune tellers are so unique, they’ve created their mold
tickets are being traded, fought over, bought and sold.
elaborate stories are being bandied about in the cold.
silver is crossing palms, upsells are extremely bold.
acrobats are doing tricks with agile bodies that fold.
from the tilt-a-whirl ride an old man just fell and rolled.
kewpie dolls nod from their shelves inside the fold.
merry-go-round horses are touched up with gold.
old women are wearing minks, flashing that they're stolled.
carnival of carnivals is a treat that never gets old.
cotton candy is pink and puffy, spun right out of gold.
tickets are being traded, fought over, bought and sold.
traveling from town to town, her tales quickly unfold.
My daddy, he gave me a silver dime
For to fetch him a bucket of cider.
My mama, she tended the laundry line,
With a big wicker basket beside her.
I took a hard left at the barber pole
And I walked past a drunk by the deli.
He was likely reliving his throw-away years
In some dark nightmare’s underbelly.
The Ferris wheel is frozen in place
By the exotic dancer’s cherry tree.
The sideshows provided the usual freaks,
Teasing gut brain and muscle memory.
An ascot wearing yacht rock commodore
Come ashore for his usual wage:
A pickpocket imperialist strutting the boards
On his chosen colonial stage.
He came from some tiny Alpine principate
After stealing a movie star’s roadster.
Just know for a fact that it weren’t Lichtenstein,
It was really Lichtenstein’s monster.
He has black labs, brewskis, and bluebirds
Neatly baked into his trendy man bun.
For when a little dab ‘ll do ya, as they say,
Who needs all that greasy kid stuff?
He’s just another two-bit clown
We see his pants fall halfway down.
There’s no understanding really what he did.
He claims he played marbles with the Sundance Kid
And the barkers lined the midway
From the high bridge to the gateway,
As I marveled at the wonders I saw
In this place they call Carnival Town.
THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR
A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE
Life's a carnival ride, a bag of barkers and crabs
pinching the mind with pink toys and shiny swag
stuffing your mind with sweet soft fuzzy things
wraps you in heavy chains and a cold nose ring,
leads you to a fiery, Ferris wheel ride of denial
plunks you aside a bearded lady-opening thighs
you want to jump off, but you're just too damn high
she takes you around a brutish, glittering world
leather studded, hungry for a necklace of dirty pearls
Her mouth is smeared with black lipstick and gravy
the rides finally over but the soul is still draining.
The fun house has mirrors filled with bending dream.
Walls are wailing, blood drips down from the beams
you scramble down back alleys for pockets of peace
then slide on chunky puddles of black ice and screams...
There's only one way out, and that's all the way down
the chute's filling with hell hounds and manic clowns
balloons brimming with flocks of blues and red herring
fistfuls of daisy grenades, with them there's no winning.
You've hit rock bottom, there's a tunnel of golden light
a beautiful angel in waiting but she's lost her mind
slowly she's swinging a crinkled-up no vacancy sign
while the barker is spinning flocks of his little white lies.
Life's a plastic bag filled with mad barkers and whirling crabs,
teasing like a virgin, then swallowing you whole like a hag.
jalapeno peppers
parading their truth proudly
making the fried tortilla laugh
oranges and the brightest azure blues
the sizzle of a skillet
my mouth salivates
strumming of a banjo
bluegrass music and cotton candy
my food hot against its cardboard sleeve
glitzy pink neon lights
smell of hot popcorn
laughter from all over the midway
Iowa state fair magic
carnival barkers screaming for my attention
fireworks will start in an hour
reading of my palm
her eyes are wizened
I am intrigued, her predictions magical
enjoying this day
in an innocent way
excitement extraordinaire
alive at fifteen
flirted at by sixteen
memory that still makes me smile at sixty-eight
Flawed Masquerade Carnival
Upon the midway of imperfection,
The traveling human circus, “illusion” of perfection,
A masquerading “mask,” in carnival unmasked,
Lies “cracked” in equinox
Like “torn” tickets discarded in the sawdust of dreams
As the “façade” crashes down into “flawed” fragments
To scatter splinters in wild spinning carousels
Flinging away the costumes of sideshows
All exposed wearing nothing but transparent truth.
Bathed in dignity
Integrity rises up shaking off ballyhooed dust
Shuts out the carney’s “broken” come-ons,
Taunts and barkers no longer entice,
Clothed in capes woven of calypso sunlight
Scarred arms, no longer concealed,
Reach out to clasp thundering pure moonbeams
Discarding charade’s ragged camouflage
And the “imperfect” circus moves on to another town.
6-21-21
Contest: Flawed
Sponsor: Constance La France
Prompt words: flawed, mask, broken, cracked, façade, torn, illusion, imperfect
A hypnotic effect is possessed by this gadget
It could even lead to a syndrome called pagets
Bent over and private its user spellbound
But unsocial and rude to all those around
Multiple noises are deftly emitted
With buttons to press and assets unlimited
Texts dispensed and news accessed
Leaving conversation to certain death
Ring tones abound in public spaces
Phone chat like barkers in public places
photos and selfies posted here and there
All manner of games to further ensnare
Thus putting the user in greater peril
When mobile phones become a menace
To drivers and walkers all absorbed
A selfish misuse to be abhorred
And a blight when the charger is mislaid
And constant debit to be repaid
This amazing gadget should remain in pocket
Until really needed, then out of the closet
Written: July 30, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori
************
The carnival dazzles—
mirific mosaics of midway magic
woven with whimsical calls from barkers
who strut boldly on boards
slick with popcorn oil and neon promises.
I, the aficionado of the absurd,
immerse myself in spectacle masquerading as
celebration,
a Falstaffian extravaganza,
a sockdolager of strobe-lit sensation,
where circus rages as horology gone amok—
clockwork chaos camouflaged as joy.
Here, even dyspnea dances:
lungs tight from laughter,
feet blistered on the boards
where the locals jive
to tunes sung in xenoglossia tones—
languages lost or learned
in the jamboree of jest.
We picnic beneath paper moons
and eat Easter-colored candy
as if Lent were long forgotten—
in this nefarious fair,
Time adumbrates indulgence.
I stumble past scantling booths
where prizes lean akin to broken teeth
and prayers cast unanswered
in the apiary buzz of sugar-rushed view.
One iconoclast offers nepenthe in a cup
with carbonation and broken fortunes—
And in that moment,
an epiphany unfolds as a palimpsest,
laughter scrawled over ancient pain,
glee grafted onto grief.
There is no paucity of pain here,
only its parody—
a meritorious mimicry
for those who can bear the weight
and yet select the lighter path.
A temporary guest of the night,
I own nothing,
but borrow every flicker of joy—
every flick of flame from the festival's fire,
every tune from the gala laughter.
Even illeism fades in festal light,
where I am not the observer,
but the observed,
not just the poet,
but the poem itself,
drawn toward this lodestone of longing.
And at last, beneath Ferris wheel stars,
I whisper into the abyss—
a cognate cry to the cosmos
_The feast is fleeting
but oh, how glorious
the festival finished?