Clown Poem by Brian Wake

Adjusting my amusing hat, on backwards
for that extra laugh, and feathers in a pail,
pretending water for applause, to drench
with, if not wit, dry humour, half the audience,
to hiss and boo and then applaud my falling,
in the sawdust, on my face.

I do this fourteen times, he said, each week,
the subtle and the obvious, create within
my audience the general mind, arousing it
to various inventions and surprise; one moment
the grotesque disgrace, and then the baggy
trousered fool tied up in sausages, and frying
pans for shoes.

I keep my distance from the watching crowd,
allowing its imagination to describe what
I might do. To prick each planet with a pin,
eat clouds like candyfloss and bounce the moon,
begin to drain the oceans with a spoon,
to stretch a tightrope from what was to soon,
and everything existing in between what some
things are and what they might have been.