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A Most Beautiful Show, poem by Brandon Whitehead
It’s another beautiful day today,
85 degrees and sunny,
A clear and beautiful sky
without a chance of any rain, snow, ice or sleet—
so let’s keep up those smiles, people!
All the polite excuses, the “Oh, Well, that’s ok.”
and that most important
“It’s just the way things have too be.”
Remember, every foul stink
is a glorious perfume,
every rank and stained odor
a boiled and spiced roast of meat,
the cigarette butts are Turkish delights
scattered by a White Queen
in stiletto heels and a push-up bra.
Wave now to the rotting Dukes and Duchesses
as their shiny carriages roll by,
giving back-handed waves
to the little people of the street
who do little dances on hard little feet,
their close-lipped smiles hiding
their sharp little teeth- It’s a gingerbread world
and you can eat it all,
even the walls, brick by brick.
You can lick the gutters clean
like frosting off a spoon,
while boys and girls of all ages
put on the best freak show that’s ever been-
Watch as they bang on their cages,
their eyes rolling back to the whites
like a shark hooked by a fat man in a tiny boat
floating in a quite, quite empty sea.
It’s a beautiful thing how our dervish world
just spins and spins and spins…
and you, yes, you, can join right in,
for just one life, one life
and you can be in the greatest carnival
their ever was, better than Catullus to drunk to walk,
or a chorus of the dammed, playing pan-flutes
with their lips cut off by leering
and capricious gods…
Somewhere, perhaps behind all those stars up there,
a studio audience is watching it all,
their laughter noted to us
as if but a passing thunder’s roll.
My, oh my, such a beautiful, beautiful show…
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