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Sideshow Poems

Memories of Sideshow Alley

You could hear the sounds
of sideshow alley blaring out
from a mile away. The hollow,
metallic rasp of music
and glow of coloured lights rose
in a huge bubble 
above the beach.

Adolescent dreams
would flutter the warm summer 
evening like a mindless moth
revved up on hope. The clang
and clatter of rides, the yells 
and excited screams sprayed out 
of a

Categories: sideshow, beach, memory, nostalgia,
Form: Free verse

Geek

Playtime in the bone-pit.
Sanctified ritual amalgamates
sawdust savagery with infantile hunger
and births a blank recognition
within the eyes of the disbelieving.
What is it?

Praise be to the Geek.
Empty, gone and automated he devours
his daily bread of chickens and rodents with
a dry heroin mouth that grinds and chews
towards infinite sideshow pay days.
Strange but true!

Mister, he was made for it.
Humiliation

Categories: sideshow, dark, identity, self,
Form: Free verse

Inside the Sideshow Tent

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 believed every come-on the sleazy carney tried--
“See the man who transforms a wax statue into gold.”
“Witness the wedding of a

Categories: sideshow, adventure, fantasy, fun,
Form: Pantoum

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry

Sideshow Tricks and Illusions

The end of the dream
and into the nightmare
sideshow distortions
and Edvard Munch screams
nothing is as it seems.

Categories: sideshow, life,
Form: Free verse

A Sideshow That Freaks

A crazed, dazed unexplained side show that freaks. What did we just do? Who knew, the few true, would prove to be me; and you? In shape we fit to form; like the shoe. In step we go toe to toe. As we set sail off the dock we began to row. From here to

Categories: sideshow, cool, crazy,
Form: Rhyme

Trump Barker In Sideshow

Trump Barker In Sideshow

Trump's financial records are n New York on file
Look like he is going through period of denial
Seems so rich and everything he can afford
Even made Daughter Chairman of a board.

If asking her a question why should you bother
Who would say anything against own father
No matter what he did or perhaps direction
Trump was

Categories: sideshow, allegory, analogy, humorous,
Form: Couplet

Sideshow

Now had his body been but still,
His face was that of a Raphael,
Limned in melancholy
Pensive eyes set on another world.

Another world he did therein dwell
Until his kangaroo jumps arrested the spell.
They froze our looks
And in wonderment we did gaze.

In his mother's tender and loving care
He fondled,caressed and kissed her hair.
Trapped in its own tissue
The congregation

Categories: sideshow, mystery
Form: Free verse

Personal Sideshow

It was a five ringed circus
Complete with the ragged remains of a tourniquet
Heavily fringed by the under eye baggage of a bloated nefarious
Clown soul that is
Blowing across the freeway garnished with the white plastic baggies
From the local supermarket factory
Now fluttering like proud flags from the tops of trees 
Spawned by an alien race 

It was

Categories: sideshow, lifeself, self,
Form: Free verse

Sideshow

Across the sawdust circus ground
Where bells and penny whistles sound,
The gypsy reads your fate for gold,
Good fortune, or dire doom, foretold.

She scans the stars, consults the gods,
And reckons up your life-death odds:
You tremble at what lies in store,
Then stumble from her tent front door…

Categories: sideshow, adventure
Form: Verse

Sideshow

Flitting,

Flight in the crisp air like an apple

Poignant and dripping

Dew like a shroud.

Insect legs touch down

Baptism for a moment of peace.

Pregnant pause

Reborn as a caterpillar.

Regress to find the truth, 

Perhaps you can find yourself

In the circus.

They'll welcome you there.

Categories: sideshow, adventure, imagination,
Form: Free verse

Sunny Sideshow

to inch upward and be the sunrise?
      or to sink slow and be the sunset?

      the sun hangs hesitant, frozen
           on the dreamy, silvery horizon,

Categories: sideshow, happiness, imagination, life,
Form: Free verse