Call in the Clowns

Nicholas Jackson

 

The dwarf howled, falling 32.2 feet per second (per-second), to his death. Only moments earlier yelling, “forward scroungers!,” as he scampered across the tightrope. In his jocularity, Fate cut him down. As he hit the circus floor, his skull shattered (a pool of gore) and the dark came swirling around his eyes. A distance and ancient cry was muffled by the screams of those watching the performance. The call for the clowns was barely audible to those silly sons of bitches. A voice cries out again. A middle-aged man with a dark olive complexion weeps for the dwarf. He wails, beats his breast, and pulls at his hair. How has he failed? How many times had he failed to save this one dwarf? Once? An infinite number? How old is the universe? How many universes are there? How many times have they existed? Once, twice, forever? He had failed again! The fucking clowns dance and play the fool. But, what a fool he was for believing he could bend space and time, to restring the cords of fate.

 

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Nicholas Jackson is a librarian from New Jersey. He has come to poetry late, late when compared with others, but not as late as others. His interests range from romanticism to modernism, but his bent is normally postmodern with a twist of the classical romantic.