A Clown Prepares

Belatedly scoffed, again the off that comes so oft.
How sown in one so haply laughed?
Why, the smell of the grease-paint, the roar of the
crowd,
And those first few seconds in the blinding spots,
Imparting a damascene transfiguration,
Whereby for a moment all the shabbiness
Is transmogrified in spangled sinecure.

Oh, sure it fades fast enough, but the high is high
enough.
And yes, you have to come back down,
But at least, you weren’t down for awhile.
“And say, didn’t ya see how the kids all smiled?”

[Il pagliaccio pads offstage, the crowd
applauds. He steps on the foot of
some young figurant.
“Ouch,” she whimpers.
“Fuck you! I’m working here!
Where the hell’re my slippers?
Jesus Christ, I hate matinees.”]

The lower-caste clown peeks through
The peephole at the new lithesome acrobat.
“Hm, nice gams,” he thinks, “I’d like to tap that.”
But knows he’ll end up in the bearded, fat lady’s
trailer.
Well, at least she always has a pint.
Something that makes the plump pudding
A little more tolerable, a little more forgettable.

Later, before the cracked mirror he surveys
himself.
The unlordly paunch, the sallow skin,
The stubbled, pock-marked face unmasked,
Thinks of kith and kin, the (long dead) old folks at
home.
“Boy, if they could see me now.”

Lying on his back in the dark,
He pulls the last smoke from the pack,
Crumples the box and tosses it across the room,
Lights and puffs his only constant friend.
For a moment harbors the thought,
“How will this all end?” But then,
“Oh well. Tomorrow we pull up, hit the road,
The next town’s a brand new. . .”

He stubs out the spent cigarette.
The light goes down.