Sunday, May 27, 2012

Carnivale



image borrowed from bing


Carnivale
Those seedy brilliantly lit carnivals
that caravanned in late at night, 
shouting down the freeway, 
as the rides were bolted together 
one more time in some vacant lot 
near the train yards, always had
an air of naughtiness about them,
like maybe squads of street walkers
had slid in with an army of pimps,
and the tired purple feathers, slit skirts,
and push up bras were pulled on over
perfumed bruises, broken knuckles
and jagged fingernails; all painted up
and ready for the suckers;
but never really having the majesty
of the Big Top, no parades, 
no ringmaster, although I once saw
an old elephant at a county fair
in Montana, and there were
camel rides in Kent one spring,
shit,
Ringling Brothers never had camel rides,
nor did they have those Carnie harem girls
who shook their asses after you paid 
your dough, and sometimes flashed
their breasts, and the freaks, man,
old Barnum never let the freaks loose,
those bearded lady weight lifters,
those hilarious midgets dashing through
the legs of stilted giants, the dwarf tossing,
the houses of horror, the houses of fun,
those damnable mirrors that twisted your
body into grotesque positions--bizarre
mirrors everywhere, infinite reflections
of mirrors inside of mirrors;
a real sordid affair that assaulted 
you with wafts of steaming animal dung,
sweaty canvas, sticky sweet cotton candy,
wet ropes, dozens of engines churning
providing the energy to power the rides,
a calliope around every corner chugging
out a carnival beat, pounding your senses,
always with the carousel in the center,
the hub, the gentle heartbeat of the place,
offering those beautifully garishly painted
whirling horses, hippos, lions, tigers, zebras
and ninja turtles, pumping up and down
like bored prostitutes--anybody could ride
them for the right price,
punctuated by ten kinds of screaming,
pretty girls and frightened men
who screamed like little girls,
dropping through chutes,
spinning in tea cups, clanking up
the roller-coaster rails and diving
headlong into valleys of calculated
chaos, swinging wildly in a ferris wheel
chair, the lock bar drenched with sweat,
rotating with loud gear clunks higher
and higher until that magnificent moment
when the car stops at the very top, 
the pinnacle of the evening,
and within that tiny mechanical window
all the music stops, you notice the stars
and the lights on the refinery miles away
as your date kisses you and uses her tongue
for the first time, and your right hand fumbles
for a breast just as the car lurches back
toward earth, and you become aware
of lunatic empty laughter
and the screaming starts again. 
Glenn Buttkus
May 2012
Posted over on dVerse Poets-poetics

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?





6 comments:

Helen said...

Be still my heart, be still! MY all time favorite HBO series ... I have the two season CD set and watch often ... amazed at what I see .. I hadn't noticed before. I wanted this series to go on and on and on.

Victoria said...

So good, Glenn--there are a number of pithy lines that describe the whole scene, that "air of naughtiness." One of the best I've read.

Brian Miller said...

haha...def dont kiss going over the hill...you might lose a tooth....nice grit in this sir...there is an underlying darkness....though i am rather fond of the freaks you know...smiles.

Claudia said...

hehe..calculated chaos it is...and some of it get a bit out of control at times you know..and can't be calculated any more...great capture sir

rosemary mint said...

This is a hilarious turn:
"an air of naughtiness about them,
like maybe squads of street walkers
had slid in with an army of pimps"

Love this:
"sweaty canvas, sticky sweet cotton candy,
wet ropes, dozens of engines churning
providing the energy to power the rides,
a calliope around every corner chugging
out a carnival beat, pounding your senses"

Excellent ending:
"and you become aware
of lunatic empty laughter
and the screaming starts again"

Did you see this midweek word prompt?
http://rosemarymint.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/midweek-melting-week-2/

Sometimes I post an extra list on Thursday or Friday, so you may want to check in to see.

I'll post tomorrow's list in the next little bit.

Anonymous said...

LOVE HBO's Carnivale series, pissed when it was cancelled

Good pome