7th August 2020

I teeter
I totter
Rocking side to side with nervous energy
Easing the swollen joints that shout my age
 
Seven decades juggling
Performing tricks for lord and fool alike
Keeping all the vagaries of life suspended
To the wonderment of all who care to see

A circle in a tent in a field
Just beyond the poorest part of town
Where life is cheaper than breakfast
And far easier to steal away

Lions roar and tigers scowl
Horses click their hooves in harmony
And cruel men raise their whips
At beast and child alike

Call me Harlequin
I have a thousand woven suits
Colored for each season 
For wedding and funeral alike

What you see is what you get
Nothing more but sometimes less
Depending if the creeping hunger
Needs make a turn into a dish

Are you a clown?
The sniveling children ask
Set to make us laugh aloud
Until we split our sides.

Choose axe, garrote, or rope
I rhetorically respond
Just loud enough to make their breeches wet
Then watch them flee into the shadows