Gothique du Grotesque: New and Selected Poems by Crow Sebastian

Author:Crow, Sebastian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: James Ward Kirk Publishing
Published: 2015-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

CARNIVAL

Let us make haste now and to the carnival go,

Drawn by the midway’s neon glow

And the calliope’s discordant cries

There’ll be rides and games and sideshow freaks,

Carnies, clowns and a genuine geek.

A barker with Steve Buscemi eyes

Invites you to step inside

While Cleopatra and her vipers

Do a burlesque bump and grind.

You sit paralyzed, caught in trance

By the power of her hypnotic dance.

Outside the funhouse, an asylum of clowns,

Grinning lunatic grins

Perform cartwheels and head spins,

Flips and rolls,

Juggling severed heads like bowling pins.

On the carousel, every turn forward

Adds a year to your life,

While every turn in reverse

Subtracts the like.

In the Hall of Mirrors,

Illusion is stripped away

As you uncover your own true face.

A pious man is revealed,

A lecher and a rake.

A harlot lies concealed

Behind a virgin’s façade.

Inside the gypsy’s vardo,

You can have your fortune told

By an ancient crone

Whose milk-white eyes

Can read your fate in a chicken’s bones.

But beware, sometimes she hides

Lies inside truth and truth inside her lies.

Avoid the roller coaster at all costs,

For once it begins it never stops,

Riding the tracks in loops and whirls

Until only your bones remain

For the carnies to haul away.

In the food court, you can dine

On rat dogs and roach burgers,

French fried lady fingers

And cobra venom wine.

There’s boiled human liver,

Spider silk cotton candy

And blood flavored brandy

That’ll make your palate quiver.

The Tunnel of Love descends all the way to Hell.

There you can bargain for your soul

With Old Scratch himself.

A brace of devils offer tortures galore,

You can even watch as they disembowel

Your beloved, laughing as she howls.

And at the end of the night,

If you happen to survive,

Take a ride to the top of the Ferris wheel

Where you can watch the carnies eat their fill

Of succulent human flesh,

Knowing that when you descend

You are certain to end

As a ghoul’s midnight meal.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.