LPiA-23 Nov. 24

[Tiger the Lion]

Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 24
Rules: Write a poem for LPiA on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a New Reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month, have written 30 poems for the month of November. (or one, or six, or fifteen) Prompts may be revisited at any time. All members are welcome.

Topic : Write a poem inspired by a clown or jester.
Form : Any
Line requirements: 8 or more

Feel free to reply with comments or kudos as you wish. 

Questions?

[TranquillityBase]

The Donner Party Mix

Both the captive and  the captor
are a little bit mad
sun and desert bite in that much harder

more likely to run into a rattlesnake
than a smile among the limestone and juniper

four months they’d fought that desert
left behind old Verecker to die alone

racing for the mountains, to beat the snows
that finally trapped them at the pass

a prison of snow and slow starvation
living underground, eating boiled leather 
torn from the roofs, unending cold

81 started the trip, 45 came out the next spring
32 were children

their advice: “don’t take no cut-offs,
and hurry along as fast as you can.”

[dukealien]

Airy Amusements


What is it with balloons and clowns?
Did their relationship begin
with the jester’s classic prop–
bladder of a slaughtered pig inflated–
used for drubbing and for drumming?

Does the modern clown’s red nose
fit in or instead relate
to a drunkard’s blood-suffused
proboscis or the hobo’s crimsoned
by nights sleeping raw and cold?

Whatever its descent or background
clowns today make animals
and toys by artfully stretch-blowing
breath becoming magic joy...
yet never forgetting
Emmet Kelly’s mournful skit
burying his dead balloon–
pathos in greasepaint.

[Pike]

The Donner Party Mix

Both the captive and  the captor
are a little bit mad
sun and desert bite in that much harder

more likely to run into a rattlesnake
than a smile among the limestone and juniper

four months they’d fought that desert
left behind old Verecker to die alone

racing for the mountains, to beat the snows
that finally trapped them at the pass

a prison of snow and slow starvation
living underground, eating boiled leather 
torn from the roofs, unending cold

81 started the trip, 45 came out the next sprimg*
32 were children

their advice: “don’t take no cut-offs,
and hurry along as fast as you can.”

This reminded me of that old joke: two cannibals eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does this taste funny to you?" 
Anyway, cool poem, and I learnt something. 


*I think this might be a typo.

[TranquillityBase]

This reminded me of that old joke: two cannibals eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does this taste funny to you?" 
Anyway, cool poem, and I learnt something. 


*I think this might be a typo.  Yep, good catch, I've become sloppy of late.

Thanks for the kind words on the poem.

[Pike]

A Clown (after John Wayne Gacy)

A lost grief flashes in the west
and barks like a dog’s vile fever.
He decays while
what’s left underneath the sink
bubbles his bug’s cat,
asking,
—Why won’t you toe the line?
But soon the tasteless faith in himself
opens a jam jar that sits in the lap
of a beautiful boy 
turned into an altar.

[Tiger the Lion]

Divas and Devils

with the sadness 
of worn shoes
and pilled concert tees

she cannot shake off 
the fame, 
the fortune, 
the adoration

or the predacious plastic surgeon's grip

so stretches her face 
into a joker she cannot save

I won't remember her
like this. 
I won't.

[Pike]

Divas and Devils

with the sadness 
of worn shoes
and pilled concert tees

she cannot shake off 
the fame, 
the fortune, 
the adoration

or the predacious plastic surgeon's grip

so stretches her face 
into a joker she cannot save

I won't remember her
like this. 
I won't.

Courtney Cox: Scream vs Scream 6... ouch.

[RiverNotch]

what will you see
in me, when we finally
no longer just remember
the smoky chamber and dusty tomes

and fear of sunlight breaking up
our first and only meeting? in your long and painful absence,
i have taken up the now too-needed task
of fully filling in my now too-spacious bed

with myself -- i've colored my hair red,
paled my skin, and thinned my wrists
all through malnutrition -- like some kind of fool
i imagine you'd despise

through your flat affection,
your mere amicability, however earnest
turns the conversation. will you see
another man emasculated

by austerity and the golden dawn
it invites? or perhaps
i'll be another funhouse mirror
this time granting you an adam's apple---

either way, the image is grotesque,
and so i pray you've come to love grotesques,
tympana, and other common features
of ecclesiastical construction...