The Day The Circus Left Town Poem by Joe Rosochacki

Today’s matinee was the Shrine Circus’s last play in town,
As we waited in line, Jason and I, for eternity to the porta-johns,
There was an old man in a terry cloth kimono,
He was on of the clowns,
A little boy cried in pain as he stood in the same line,
His bladder couldn’t hold anymore, he couldn’t be more than nine,
And he relieved himself, in his pants, and on the floor.
A motorbike was rolled in the busy concourse, a crib was rolled,
In the opposite direction by another clown, as people shoved,
The man with motor bike yelled “Excuse Me” as the clown shouted,
“Move out of the way! ”
He was a man dressed in women’s clothes and was a pretty mean clown if I should say,
Two adolescent ladies agreed and said “NO DOUBT! ”,
What are the magic words? To the clown, chill out.
I guess you’d be upset if you didn’t know what sex to be or what being a clown actually was about.
The old man in the terry-cloth was accompanied by his wife,
Who had looked as though she was barely alive,
The clowns weren’t that funny, tigers barely roared, no one was shot from a cannon,
Elephants didn’t leave their tracks, little dogs missed the hoop,
The pooper scoopers weren’t even that busy ‘cause there was hardly any poop to scoop.
Frankly it was a bore, except for on acrobat.
Who landed so hard, that his loose fitting pants fell down to his knees,
As if it were a striptease, with only a jock strap he bared all,
The section got more, than what they bargained for,
With his out stretched arms he felt very tall and probably very cool,
He noticed his seen appendage abruptly picked up his purple pants,
And surely felt like a fool.
Time to go, when the less than grand finale occurred,
until next year it will be too soon
To see these same acts, surely to this person no interest to be stirred
So gone are the calliopes and big tents,
Now we have mean clowns and redundancy
What happened to the likes of Milky, Oopsy, and Bozo the Clown,
Maybe they won’t take a vacation next time the circus comes to town.

(2-1987)