Member Poem

The escape of the circus freaks was nothing to laugh about.
Some of them were harmless enough: the bearded lady, the man with the ears and hooves of a goat, the woman with the body of a Rubens and the head of a catfish, scales and tentacled whiskers and walleyed vision to match.
Yet there were others who posed a serious threat to pub-lic sanity.
What if Mesmer Man invaded the privacy of your bed-room while you were helplessly lost in bland blue slumber? He could forge any illusion he chose in the chambers of your unconscious: orange waves, yellow skies, emerald pen-insulas piercing your brain with forests fiendishly quixotic in the fauna and flora they had to offer.
What if Knife Boy arrived at a shopping mall or a major thoroughfare during the Christmas rush, hurling his ready stream of acid jibes and razor-sharp insults at hapless pedes-trian shoppers, cutting to the quick of the bright commer-cial spirit, leaving holiday blood slathered in smears and droplets on kiosks and plate glass windows?
Imagine the quarantines required and man-hours lost if the Siamese Quintuplets exposed their lascivious dance and outlandish ways to the eager glance of an ingénue genera-tion. Picture your children with their eyes bulging out of their heads and the veins throbbing in their temples.
Think of them all, freaks in concert, rampaging through the failing light of a dusk we could not control, peering in our windows, running in and out of the shadows, pounding on our doors with hands that had no doubt fondled both their own distorted bodies and one another's in obscene detail.
And then the night burning with new phantoms we had yet to fathom.
What of the bicameral chaos and legislative stampedes that could entail? Remember that hysteria and trampled death are not uncommon in partisan relations.
The escape of the circus freaks could have been a case brandished in media sensation for federal scrutiny and a score of investigative committees. Yet it was swiftly squelched in favor of events more suited to the masses.
Let us be thankful the trusty Circus Police, diminutive yet energetic, twelve to a car and forever inventive in their slapstick antics, managed to corral this ragged cast of dan-gerous miscreants before harm could be delivered to the equipoise of our palatable metropolis and axiomatic nation.
Let us pass the buttered popcorn and pay homage to the carnival gods who have placed these entertaining and vigi-lant guardian-clowns at our imminent disposal.

Appeared in Vestal Review