Guest Author - Elizabeth Bissette
1. The Barker
Step right up. Step right up.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
come one come all,
you will be amazed.
You will come eager,
leave dazed.
Raise the edge of the curtain there.
Scared?
Look up at the tightrope walker's dance.
Come in, see the Siamese twins from France.
There's a snake charmer waiting
behind that screen.
And, an awful scene
takes place in the lion tamer's room
at half past noon.
Step
right
up.
See the acrobat and the lady with three eyes?
And me, I've guessed your age, your weight, your lies.
I'll whisper them with hollow whistling sounds
while carnival lights spin round and round.
See the acrobat and the lady with three eyes?
The strong man is so tall he sees it all
and the wolf-boy is quick to call
in a lonesome howl.
The midgets pick pockets.
The man at the ferris wheel
has unkind designs.
The knife thrower's on the edge
of his mind.
Step right up. Step right up.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
come one come all,
you will be amazed.
You will come eager,
leave dazed.
Step
right
up.
2. The Magician
He was once the toast of England and France
The Great Conjurini - there was even a dance
named for the way his assistant would sway
during a certain smoke and mirrors trick.
But he became sick.
Struck down mid-second-world-tour
it didn't matter that he'd done it before
all those cancelled shows
left his ratings rather low.
That's just the way it goes.
It was all the fault of a slender young girl
who'd made his eyes roll and his toes curl
and who'd made him so ill he'd almost gone blind
but looking back, he didn't so much mind.
It had just been that good.
Everyone said he should
find a new gimick and burst forth anew.
They claimed it wasn't just that he knew
the secrets of magic and sleight of hand
but rather the way to trick any woman or man
into believing whatever he chose.
Everyone knows
that most of what happens is of his design
that's why he's always on the sidelines
whenever something goes down.
Even the clowns
don't dare laugh
when he passes.
He refused everyone's advice
didn't even listen, didn't think twice
just went on being Conjurini.
Watching him is a lot like dreaming.
He doesn't look like you should take him lightly.
He really is actuallly rather frightening.
Though fiercely attractive.
It's almost psycho-active.
He can escape any trap devised.
He very much seems to have x-ray eyes.
He can dissappear quick as a flash
and then even quicker appear back.
He sometimes flies through the air.
And usually gives the crowd a scare.
His assistant exudes both wonder and fear
whenever he so much as ventures near.
It clearly isn't just the slicing in two
that makes her smiles so seldom and few.
No one really knows
much about the situation.
Or the nature of their relation.
No one has ever seen anything like him
he has a gaze that could dim or brighten
the most skeptical crowd.
His voice is deep and loud.
His hands flash like carousel lights
and he seems to summon the very night
with his fingers.
His laugh lingers
in a bone chilling way
long after he's gone away.
"Conjurini! Conjurini!" The excited crowd
starts off in a whisper then gets loud.
It's really him they've come to see
in spite of the vast tapestsry
of oddity
the Carnival proclaims
there is no other name
that invokes such anticipation.
However long they wait for him,
they feel their time's well spent.
"Conjurini! Conjurini!" the whispers drone
long after he's gone.
3. The Sword Swallower
The sword swallower
had never spoken.
Never once, not one
word - frozen
and mute as a statue.
He'd look right at you
with eyes that defied
you to question
his talent for expression.
Was it the frog in his throat
he had meant to kill?
Had some thing surprised
or otherwise
made him slip unawares?
The stares
were discouraged
but no one cared.
A crowd pressed close around
the gruesome scene.
The sword swallower seemed
horrified.
His eyes
light-bulb wide,
his mouth a frozen gash,
his throat slashed,
like a samauri's belly
after hari-kari.
The gore
was unimaginable.
No one knew
what he'd meant to do
but the result
was certain.
Curtains.
4. The Tightrope Walker
Have you ever felt your mind slip?
Ever almost taken a quick flip
over the edge of stable?
Were you able
to regain your balance?
Did your perception make allowance
for what it was losing fast?
And if it did, did it last?
That's what she does every time
she steps on to the high, tight line.
She makes it look like a game.
But she's close to insane.
She twirls through the air
like a mad dervish set aspin
by a whirlygig second wind.
It defies the imagination.
She is really quite a vision.
It's no use saying a word about it
she will not accept
the good sense of a net.
Even the Midway Boss pointed out
that while he saw what she was about,
he had serious doubts
she'd be more to him dead than alive.
She's twenty-five;
kind of old to be pulling such tricks
in spite of the fact that she's used to it
she simply doesn't have the skills.
And if she doesn't at this point never will
be light as a feather or on her toes.
But she keeps on taking an anything goes
approach.
She looks like a little china doll.
She never looks afraid at all.
She leaps across the high, thin line,
turning cartwheels all the time,
then flips backwards so quickly everyone says
it's a miracle she doesn't fall on her head.
Instead
she somehow walks the line.
But it's a matter of time
before she loses her mind.
Have you ever felt your mind slip?
Ever almost taken a quick flip
over the edge of stable?
Were you able
to regain your balance?
Did your perception make allowance
for what it was losing fast?
And if it did, did it last?
5. The Tattooed Man from Borneo
The Tattooed Man from Borneo
laughs and then smiles just so.
He's quite a fright, with spikes in his nose,
rings through his eyes and eyes on his toes.
No one knows
where he really came from
or got his love of pain from.
His native tounge
is clearly not exotic.
He often fly's into a fearsome rage
and rattles the bars of his Borneo cage
reducing children to shivvering bits.
No one who sees him likes it.
He claims he was a castaway
on a ship that was to carry him away
from unspeakable crimes that remained unspoken
committed on some far more Northern coast than
Borneo. He'd just liked it so kept it as his own.
It was generally thought that he was from France
and that his ship had wrecked so he'd taken the chance
to dissappear.
He was feared
by the natives he found
so stuck around.
He'd had 17 wives and other rare things,
he claimed as he played with his shiny eye rings.
He dined every day on enemy stew
and executed grisley tortures too.
So he sasys, though no one fully believes him
they have to admit they can easily see him
doing any of the above.
He doesn't exactly inspire love.
The Trapeze artist shudders noticably.
For what? It's rather hard to see.
Until she casts a wayward glance
at the Tatooed man's hands.
At firt sight she looks like she might
go suddenly insane.
It begins to rain.
6. Midnight on the Midway 1
It's all quieted down
but for the sound
of the survivors settling in.
As early birds tuck in
there's a gypsy laugh, then,
a burst of flame and a laugh again.
Rumor is there's a new sword swallower coming.
"Everyone's taste for knife throwing is running
out. That's the third time one's turned out
to be more than apparantly doubtful."
"Wonder if the next swallower don't take more than a mouthful",
a Roustabout sneers.
The Acrobats jeer
at the Elephant Man out of habit.
The Magician's rabbit
changes from white to red.
The man who bites off heads,
thank God, went to bed.
He has a terrible problem with alcohol
and often smashes rats against the wall
in a fevered frenzy.
Someone screams and then he
laughs viciously.
It's hard to see,
but the gypsy man with the blue-black eyes
gave the tightrope walker quite a surprise
back there behind the ferris wheel.
And to the left the gaffer makes a deal
with one of the roustabouts.
The fortune teller whispers, "You've been here before."
Alarming most, she then screams, "And you'll be once more."
And claws at the sky shouting dark refrains.
It begins to rain.
Everyone goes inside
not bothering to take
a last look
at the rides.
