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

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