Long Barnum Poems
Long Barnum Poems. Below are the most popular long Barnum by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Barnum poems by poem length and keyword.
RoBo Calls
Miracle Man
4/25/2025
I’ve a strong dislike that now borders on hate,
toward those unwanted calls that won’t abate.
I get perhaps ten or so of these calls every day,
thinking I’m an “Old Codger” they can sway.
Its often about Medicare and always a scam,
her sweet voice has for me some new program.
I appreciate her having my interest at heart,
but I’m not a sucker that she can outsmart.
Calls interrupt my meals and also slumber,
once or twice they’ve came from my number.
These I always answer without undue delay,
for I’m always curious as to what I might say.
“There’s a sucker born every minute” Barnum said,
and many minds have chosen his quote to embed.
Something unfortunate will be happening in May.
The Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus is going away.
It has been the "Greatest Show on Earth" for 146 years.
A great number of fans very well may be shedding tears.
All the elephants, lions, tigers, and clowns,
along with acrobats, and trapeze artists will not be touring towns.
Costs have risen, and attendance figures have declined.
Profits apparently are harder to find.
They say all good things can never last.
The famous circus will become a thing of the past.
From the website of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Who is the Ringmaster?
Who is the pawn?
Who will decipher
When the patrons are gone?
Enter the Big Top spot the trapeze,
Allay all your fears, put them at ease.
Barnum, Ringling masters long past,
Legends of showmanship destined to last.
Performers who push human boundaries,
Whose skills outstrip all practicalities.
It's raw talent on view in center ring,
Unique marvels of practice really happening.
No single skill matters outside the ring,
Performance in life, that's the thing.
Suspend for a moment what you know to be real,
Fantasy is fostered, it's the circus appeal.
Listen to the Ringmaster's full vibrato
As he shows each act with flair.
Paces his rich voice staccato
Presenting, making you connect and care.
Never lets himself become the show,
Top hat in hand in center ring, beginning to the end.
Tells you all you need to know,
Master of all the fun, every patron's friend.
I wonder how the luster of evening,
could hush despair amidst its glow, but,
its touch upon this skin escapes me
as the light reflects a child's face, gone:
Through nightfall's sail, eyes weep in private
while the rain flows intermittently,
it spills...like dying stars along the roadside
until this body is drenched in cold yearning.
Within gloss of dew, cotton candy days are recalled
enshrining laughter on Barnum Bailey fairs-
then, jelly-smudges circle her girlish mouth,
a wiggle on a red bike's new handle zigzagging away
where flavors of revelry linger, still...still.
And now, dusk creates another empty place
inside more holes in a pinpoint of ebon clouds,
that I am left alone
without a voice... choked by reality's pinch
when early dawn trickles in beats---
and singing myself to slumber
no one hears a Rockabye's wail, except...
Written 9/14/2018
------------------
Shush, Did You Hear That:
Anthony Slausen's Contest
Initially, an attempt
sought regarding Das scribe,
yours truly donning checkerboarded rawhide
collared, cuffed oversize raiment, pride
and prejudice obscured
courtesy hand-me-downs
couture also decking out
alley oop trapeze artist bride
of Frankenstein grooming in attendance
with her bonafide
circus motley crew, a veritable
monster mish mashup
happenstance didst decide
unlike traditional feted newlyweds
swingers airborne did only abide.
The law of gravity aerial
pas de deux bodies airborne
aloft pledging their respective troths sworn
fleeting suspended animation while shorn
infinitesimally of Earth's pull
only expert can playfully scorn
accomplishment courtesy no greenhorne
neophytes in utero umbilical cord,
taking root as metaphorical acorn,
thus unbridled and groomed skill inborn
burst out the womb like heated popcorn
snapped up since birth well worn
genes Ringling Brothers and
Barnum & Bailey circus practiced morn
till night stunts became second nature
encore performance no matters bodies outworn.
Curtain Call now doth close
unrehearsed poetic gambit,
cuz yours truly tuckered out I suppose
ready to take his doze
zee dough into dreamland, expose
zing oft times confused
with dark shadow of outer limits
of twilight zone, where me lovely bones froze
where sudden night mare arose
gripping courtesy rigor mortis head to toes
daunting wordsmith champion
manifestation of daily woes.
Suddenly me clutched
by melancholic despair
somnambulantly where
countless tomb morrows tramp
scarcely undifferentiated from yesterday's care
wracking psyche with wrath plus fear
at accursed purposelessness near
faux sing myself regarding pas
city to emulate good cheer.
Perched on figurative shoulder...
taking devil's advocate stance...,
with sharp eyed cognizance
of course Joe King abidance!
Wild eyed traitor Joe Schmoe,
albeit Democrat subjects himself to grow
wing skepticism at impeachment show
whip lashed, viz strapping jock who stow
weapons of mashed destruction
expects at least one rotten tomato,
or "mother's petrified pop slop,
electronic brickbats, et cetera
hard as(s) bupkis targeting yours truly
smack dab rendering aspiring po'
wit smashing me face
courtesy final deathblow,
while pilloried vainly
waiting for... Godot,
cuz I must say impeachment travesty
appears triumphantly trumped,
where Nancy Pelosi will eat crow
proving Hillary Clinton's catchphrase
basket of deplorables apropos
aforementioned speaker of the house
tin pot dictatorial desperado
scuttling hither and yon to and fro
oddly enough even staking out
manhunt for Wizard of Oz
enlisting (right on the Dot) doggone toto
tense seat of pants increasing
stiff competition on all faux pas,
whereby freezeframe tableaux
icy (I see) as temperatures
dip down into five below
analogous to stop motion
projector manned by bonobo
sports petsmart stuff and struts
(think shock absorbed) ditto
Ringling Bros and Barnum
& Bailey Circus, where ma's yoyo
tricks, tracks, and trumps...
three ringed circus, nonetheless
(toe) nail biting suspense
amazingly graceful slick cameo
starring emperor donning
invisible new clothes
couture well worn portfolio
prosecutorial cadres itching
to dredge schmutz (quad) drilling,
and extracting ore region null
evidence upending forefathers status quo
appearing impressive bandying
sine qua non quid pro quo bingo
emphatic pedantic Latin Oh
though above named
language dead - Anglo
Saxon heavily and
will (yum) doth barr row,
especially to appear self important
those of the Senate
does saul full bellow.
Looking back helplessly
at every foible like Epimetheus.
Born like a weed in the steamy morning,
I was an aimless, crude creature spinning
flamboyant cobwebs like a confident fool.
I slathered prismatic patterns, grinning like a jester.
Then, civilization impounded the measures of my dreams.
I became an embarrassed, lying chowderhead, concealing
my crayons.
I lacked language, locution, or parlance.
I sat absent, a prisoner in rote computation.
My night dreams merged with day-dreams.
My solo island became a continent.
I tried phoning out with phony phonetic fumbles
but everyone could see.
So, I slipped away, deserting, fleeing,
riding the rails in boxcars.
My passage through nocturnal town and village
untraceable, uncertain, preoccupied with the pigments
of my polyscope.
Later, I reappeared, reconsidered, and revised,
replicating the decorations of acuity, imitating
profundity like P. T. Barnum.
My spectacle drew crowds until I was discovered.
My retreat and retraction now heavy with
fatigue, I know not the lens of my psyche.
In sobriety, I recall all my splinters and ruptures.
But my rearranged reissues of adornments
will persist until I am expelled.
Published: The Opiate Journal, July 2020
What do I know of soul?
Nothing but its close conspiracy with death
As the soul disconnects and flies when we die.
The world's soul can be seen in the clouds,
And death looms and hovers high
Over this tumbling clod of earth.
I also see the wind in the clouds
And hear the floating truth the wind conveys.
The world is a Barnum and Bailey hoax,
An elaborate deception.
Does not the earth look flat?
Does not the sun appear to rise and set?
We are but a mere handful of dust
Thrown into the face of the wind.
That may or may not be soul,
But it sifts us along, anyway,
Like the silt of destinies.
No one is accountable for the accident of his birth,
Although he may be for the untimeliness of his death.
Life is a great chaotic secret,
And we are merely ignorant
Searching souls in constant cosmic disarray.
Author's note: We are all ordinary. What is extraordinary is that so many of us ignore what few strengths lie within us as we try to live with and around our flaws. "Soul" is an imprecise term, or so it seems to me. "Mystery", perhaps, has the advantage of a more precise application.
Every day it just gets more and more embarrassing, smh. The sad part about it is, the grass was gray (dead and withered) the first time, yet somehow people still believed gray grass was gonna somehow turn green the second time around. Truth be told, it is far worst. We are in Total Disarray! Like for real, how many signs of stupidity can you ignore? Smh. We really are the Weakest Link and the Dumbest Link. Barnum & Bailey at its finest.
With that being said, keep your seat belt buckled, cause every day we going for a ride.
And every day is like a malfunctioned Waymo car, running wild and loose with no order, no structure and no sense of direction.
All I can say is wheww chile! When this circus show comes to an end, there’s going to be sooo much to do and undo… like literally, SO MUCH!
Everything is Free
and I Don’t Want it
6-4-2016
They’re targeted at any seeking cheap or free,
Offers come by email, phone, TV or printed.
Somehow all offers always seem to include me,
It’s always gimmick, gadget, or misrepresented.
But I’m not interested in things without price,
Because the price is previously fixed to another;
Instructions and pertinence are always un-precise,
While in my individual space I well nigh smother.
If it’s something I’ve won or an offer near free,
They think, my information they might gather.
With offers come things with which I won’t agree,
And I’m growing tired of their constant blather.
I’ve won multiple lotto’s which I’ve not entered,
And people in Nigeria have checks in my name.
On shearing sheep these folk’s minds are centered,
Will we ever see termination to this doltish game.
Not as long as suckers exist.
And P T Barnum said “there’s a sucker born every minute”
Tom