Classic Poem

An atomic sprite
perched on a polished
monster-stallion
reigns over Ringling's revolving
trinity of circus attractions
Something the contour
of a captured crab
waving its useless pearly claws

From a squat body
pigmy arms
and bow legs
with their baroque calves
curve in a bi-circular attitude
to a ballerina's exstacy

An effigy of Christmas Eves
smile-cast among chrysanthemum curls
it seems a sugar angel
while from a rose flecked ruff of gauze
its manly legs
stamp on the vast rump of the horse

An iridescent speck
dripped from a rainbow
onto an ebony cloud

Crab-Angel I christen you
minnikin of masquerade sex
Helen of Lilliput?
Hercules in a powder puff?

SONG

" Had you been born
in regions of the Unicorn
To balance on his ivory horn
perhaps — — — "
" Per Bacco! 'Tis an idiot dwarf
hooked to a wire to make him jump "

Automaton bare-back rider
the circus-master
jerks
your invisible pendulence
from an over-head pulley
to your illusory
leaps in up-a-loft

signs
the horse
racing the orchestra
in rushing show
throw
his whimsy wire-hung dominator

to dart
through circus skies of arc-lit dust
Crab-Angel like a swimming star.

clutching the tail-end of the Chimera
An aerial acrobat
floats on the coiling lightning
of the whirligig
lifts
to the elated symmetry of Flight — — —

A startled rose
whirls in the chaos of the hoofs

The jeering jangling
jazz
crashes to silence

The dwarf —
subsides like an ironic sigh
to the soft earth
and ploughs
his bow-legged way
laboriously towards the exit
waving a yellow farewell with his perruque