Long Carney Poems

Lake county music company filled with 
slots carney folk real carny folk the little 
pete's illegal gambling road show throughout 
the  Midwest gaming like your idol Frank Peter 
Balistreiri the mad bomber stops Metropolis...

Read More

Slang..
Chick-fil-a = the best place ever
jade = 
brooke = gorgeous 
mishin = the boss, as in “You aren’t the boss of me.”

Orpheus
We’re on vaycay. School is OVER, COVID is over. We’re in New York City...

Read More

A spinning world globe just set off the center of its axis pole,
Welcome to the mad-mad Hatter’s topsy-turvy upside down
Wonderland, just another inside out hole where bunnies ware
Waist coats and fancy pocket watches!
Empty tea cups,...

Read More

transparency (another puppet in the puppet show)

when mr. hope & change ran for leader of the empire,
he filled those so desperate
with hopes that were ungrounded,
if not completely false---
for if you walk like a politician &
you...

Read More

mr. hope & change is saddened again,
as just a few weeks ago the nation mourned
the deaths of those blown away in a movie
theater, 
now a skinhead takes out 6 in a Wisconsin
Sikh temple &
yet the...

Read More

the “inevitable”

watching mr. hope & change’s puppet,
mr. jay carney, 
quiver with near climactic anticipation 
as he mutters to a room full of reporters
that “assad’s fall is inevitable,”
reminds one of libya’s fall that was
also “inevitable,”
and how...

Read More

The Keystone Cops were funny,
Chaplain, Keaton, Lloyd, and Fields too.
Laurel and Hardy, and Will Rodgers,
Were just some of the names we knew.


Who can forget the Stooges, 
Or all the pies we saw them throw?
Who didn't...

Read More

Hitler's final attack on quote unquote 
undesirable humans from the bile's of slave 
ships prison camps European complete 
infestation thee German female cock roach 
feasting on poor captured humans and their 
belongings during world war...

Read More

That night, vibrant Effie Blake told me “You Don’t Have To Be A Star”
To see the beauty of this world or meet Troy Nelson, of the “Dead Star”
Ahh!!! My voice need to be heard, that...

Read More

The Keystone Cops were funny
Chaplin, Keaton, and Fields too.
Laurel & Hardy and Will Rogers
were some of the names we knew.

Who can forget the Stooges
or all the pies we saw them throw.
Who didn't laugh at the...

Read More

Pile drivers have replaced gandy dancers
And Mayflower trucks the circus, open-cage parades
Horse drawn down Main Street U.S.A.,

But overnight canvas bosses still command
Roust abouts to raise big top sails,
Over decks of prairie dogs and tumbleweeds.

There are...

Read More

Sumthang wrong wiff dez words
They give know direction
To me and you
Hypertheticail thoughts
They don't tell me
What I gotta do

Ribeye, broccoli, and potatoes
Cup of gravy on the side!
The Carney, sorney 
Tater, broccoli and
Meat special
Now we know
The garlicky,...

Read More

dear mr. carney 

just what are the “international obligations”
of the country of which your talking head twitches?
just how many nukes, biological weapons &
weapons whose horrors we cannot even imagine
(because we are not told anything about...

Read More

Inside the sideshow tent were such wonders to behold.
I believed every come-on the sleazy carney tried--
“Come, see a woman covered in snakes,” the barker cajoled,
“Witness the wedding of a groom and his tiny midget bride.”

I...

Read More

How big you seemed, how bright your stage
how loud and funny, in my little boy's eyes 
you were larger than everyone else's life,
even a lifetime later, your memory still is

Those amazing vaudeville routines, with new
command...

Read More

Sandburg saw you
more than a century ago
in prairie-town Galesburg -
an old lady on the porch - 
unbothered by the whooping cries
of ball-playing boys.

Strangely, you had become a missing piece
in the jigsaw puzzle of my life
and...

Read More

I suppose the prez is proud of his mealy-mouthed spokesman Carney.

('Carnies' are carnival touts famous for spewing a heap of blarney!)

I think I'm quite well-versed and understand the English language well

But when I hear his...

Read More

Tuesday night 
Nobody reads poetry
They all sit at home
Dazed from Monday
Oblivious and alone

Postcards from 
Yesterday
Upon the office wall
Nothing left to do 
Let’s take the kids…
        To the fair

Rick...

Read More

It’s thunderstorm country around here. 
They roam the boiling, hot, southern skies
on legs of lightning, like dark, angry trolls. 

My Chinese roommate is impressed with them 
because as menacing and mountainous and electrical 
as they...

Read More

You mangled my life for 
games of chance creating 
madness within a carney 
realm feasting on my thoughts 
tampering with my mind crushing 
me chest ripping my heart out 
stomping on it raising your brow...

Read More

Carney, Tightrope, A Song For You
plus so many more 

Instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, mentor
Claude Russell Bridges — Leon Russell  (1942-2016)

One of Oklahoma’s finest
One of America’s finest

His voice the perfect blend of annoying
nasal-rub, blues-massage, sandpaper over...

Read More

There was a carney, I knew as Larry.
He lived with a knife thrower, named Sherry.
Sherry loved her yellow canary,
and trusted its care while gone to Larry.

While she was gone, the bird somehow got free.
He looked...

Read More

There was a carney, I knew as Larry.
He lived with a knife thrower, named Sherry.
Sherry loved her yellowish canary,
and trusted it’s care while gone to Larry.

While she was gone, the bird somehow got free.
He looked...

Read More