American Fairground

In between the calliope's notes,

Bradbury whispers Stephen's name

and the barkers shout roll up, roll up,

while something wicked always comes.

In the cheap glamour of the neon lights,

each small town's fields host the games

of coin toss and shoot out the star

with the bent barrels of BB guns.

Wistful girls look at unsuitable boys

with tattoos – maybe even crooked teeth -

and dream of carny-following days

when one mistake begins a fatal, foetal growth.

In the patched tents and gaudy trailers

of this so-called satanic caravan,

the bearded lady dreams of soldiers,

siblings contrive at siamese twins

and the tarot speaks of forgotten things.

The dupe, the customer, the rube, the fool,

the stranger in the strangest land,

makes connection with the other soul,

the carny people, the travelling kind,

'til they understand why the seal-boy sings.

In the gleam of the calliope's notes,

the junkyard orchestra echoes Tom's growl,

the voice of the carny's cousin, the boardwalk boy,

the song of a broken, rusted penny nail.

The sound of the sucker's even break

is that of one hand clap-clapping

in applause at the carny's joke,

as his hand is in your empty pocket.

For this is America; the tenderloin and the potter's field;

this is the West, the East and the flat in-between;

the head and the tail of the dollar sold

for a thin dime and a spin of the keno balls again.