THE RINGING OF THE BARDS XII

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The Carnival Comes

The trucks have rumbled down the road.
At night they rested in the new spot.
Sodden thirsts have woken up early
to assemble machines before the dawn.
Speakers have been set up for there will be music.
Soon there will be food and noise and light –
bells and calliopes, hot dogs in paper
and lights strung in a row,
mirrors, mirrors, lots of mirrors
(for we must see ourselves as happy, amused).

Looking in the glass we see that
there are two of everything except us,
how disconcerting.
But there is little time for rumination
for we must buy this illusion,
we must purchase it from pipes and painted steel.
Smells rival one another, last nights rain, the fragrance of moist earth,
pop corn, pickle relish, mustard,
oil and iron, hot incandescent lights.
And always we pass the mirror to peek inside, and wonder,
watch them turning at the heart of the carrousel.

The music stops, people exit and the ride fills again.
Another tune starts, the carrousel spins,
the mirror scans for strange new views
in this place of Cartesian Duality.
It circles and circles –
we ride the painted ponies to where we started
(somehow we always end up there).
Children giggle, mothers smile, lovers embrace, wind caresses,
lights sparkle, in the mirror you see the world spinning behind you.
Eagerly we get in line again.

So much noise – the crack of rifles ringing bells,
music, loudspeaker voices with their Doppler second selves,
whirring motors, the wail of wind singing
its last song in airplane wings,
the calliope (associated with poetry, for we dream tonight)
and, behind it all, the mirror turns
showing a world that we know is silent –
cacophony and crystal.
Turning, turning, everything spins,
we are dervishes in the moonlight,
separated by having spun together,
each with our own ears and lips and heartbeats.

I search for yours – lips moist and warm –
I learn rhythm, friction and not to fear entropy.
But somehow I have lost you.
I see us in the mirror, wandering away.
I look back, we have turned away from the light.
We are another couple I recognize,
who have sated themselves on cotton candy and illusion;
we are fat and starving.

The lights go out – one last look in the mirror
on a world now of shadow. In the profound silence
a cricket sings to solve a lonely puzzle.


Thanks to all the wonderful poets who graciously contributed their works to this RotB XII, you are friends and fellow strugglers against the loneliness of words. Please enjoy all the fantastic writing they have done. It should be a great, leisurely oddessey to touch their minds and souls. It has certainly been my honor and pleasure to have been touched by them!