11-25-2023, 12:06 AM
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.
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.
Non-practicing atheist