Clown Car - Sept 10 2024

 

Clown Car

Sept 10 2024

All my life

gamely trying

to keep too many balls in the air.

But I’m a bad juggler

and even 3 is too much,

soon dropping a couple

or spilling them all

in a frantic game of catch.

So who knows how many times

I’ve had to bend down

pick up

and go at it again.

While the more adept

eyes rapt and hands a blur

glide cat-like

keeping them all  in the air.

But like the showmen they are

don’t just settle for balls,

defying gravity

with chainsaws

burning torches

sharpened knives.

While I struggle

to keep 3 balls from falling,

let alone risk death.

And now, after having spent my best years

on this carnival trick

have tired of the sideshow.

Not when in the very end

even the experts drop their balls,

and like the rest of us

watch them roll to a stop

while the world goes on

with its weighty affairs;

a life’s work

of little consequence.

And to think

I could have learned high wire

lion taming

clown car.

Even the bearded lady

is having more fun

than us jugglers and easy marks.

While the carnival barker’s a star,

pulling in the crowd

with his rat-a-tat patter

of fast-talk, wisecracks, and fabulist teasers.

Billions of balls in the air,

and their billions of breathless jugglers

dancing badly under them

while straining to look up;

gamely trying to do

just as we were told.