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Carnival
CARNIVAL celebrates the quirky, the odd, and an audience of participants and voyeurs. The first section contains linked poems that focus on small towns’ annual festivals. The second, “Sideshows,” looks at fictional, mythic, and real characters from a speculative angle. The third, “The Traveling Circus,” centers on one of mankind’s oldest entertainments. CARNIVAL unleashes a vibrant and revolutionary spirit in poems that favor a skewed vision: sometimes effervescent, often dark.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 2, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 17, 2020
Colby’s dark take on sticky fingers, spinning amusement rides, the freak show and of course the clowns is ominous, or speaks the colorful eye-catching lights of its own Carnival.
Favorites:
- The Little Match Girl
- Red Riding Hood
- Raggedy Ann & Andy
- Mary Mallon
- Medea
- Wallenda
- Clowns
Favorites:
- The Little Match Girl
- Red Riding Hood
- Raggedy Ann & Andy
- Mary Mallon
- Medea
- Wallenda
- Clowns
March 14, 2018
We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:
HIGH WIRE
Who can trust the wind?
It sails the wanderer home
To a house it has demolished. You know
Its inconsistent nature:
Verb of air that won’t be conjugated.
Space yawns like a mouth.
You hang by your heels to seize
A white bird falling
With the face of your ambition.
Your son nailed to a chair
Can never swerve your step
Through netless realms of air.
You test currents before gliding
With a crosspiece like a man heading
For calvary.
The errant gust as, strung between skyscrapers,
You become a pendulum
Of time gaining momentum
Until there can be no retreat. All the way down
You grip your balance pole.
It cannot bless you now.
The cable sways in heaven
Like a venomous viper or the sinuous road
Only angels risk. But your children
Will walk blindly in your footsteps,
Learning the graven shape
Of the misstep.
HAMELIN
Overrun with vermin,
The grain devoured.
Contaminated with black lozenges,
The rank piss of the invader.
They starved. Who to
Nourish—children or workingmen?
No need to feed the old. They shrink
Flesh to bone, cadavers of
Silence. The houses grew cold.
Cutting wood ate calories. They slept
In the hard beds of privation
Listening to the rustle of the rats
In the eaves. Small glittering eyes
Like penny nails. Voracious.
The angel arrived in the guise
Of a troubadour, pipes and mandolin
Slung over his shoulder. He
Made the deal that God allows:
This for that. They weighed the choices—
Kids or rats. What they saw were
Mouths. The interminable feeding.
After he’d led the rats off
In a long snake of furred tribulation,
They pondered. Go back on a vow?
Then what—damnation? It has always been
The old versus the young with their good
Molars, their appetite for more.
A parliament of judges deliberated
While the children rollicked. Heedless
And demanding. A story began: How a land
Of plenty existed, blessed with cherry blossoms,
Peavines and olives. The angel that drove them forth
Years and years ago has come back
With celestial music, a lyric of harmony.
The children listened spellbound
And began to pack for the diaspora.
HIGH WIRE
Who can trust the wind?
It sails the wanderer home
To a house it has demolished. You know
Its inconsistent nature:
Verb of air that won’t be conjugated.
Space yawns like a mouth.
You hang by your heels to seize
A white bird falling
With the face of your ambition.
Your son nailed to a chair
Can never swerve your step
Through netless realms of air.
You test currents before gliding
With a crosspiece like a man heading
For calvary.
The errant gust as, strung between skyscrapers,
You become a pendulum
Of time gaining momentum
Until there can be no retreat. All the way down
You grip your balance pole.
It cannot bless you now.
The cable sways in heaven
Like a venomous viper or the sinuous road
Only angels risk. But your children
Will walk blindly in your footsteps,
Learning the graven shape
Of the misstep.
HAMELIN
Overrun with vermin,
The grain devoured.
Contaminated with black lozenges,
The rank piss of the invader.
They starved. Who to
Nourish—children or workingmen?
No need to feed the old. They shrink
Flesh to bone, cadavers of
Silence. The houses grew cold.
Cutting wood ate calories. They slept
In the hard beds of privation
Listening to the rustle of the rats
In the eaves. Small glittering eyes
Like penny nails. Voracious.
The angel arrived in the guise
Of a troubadour, pipes and mandolin
Slung over his shoulder. He
Made the deal that God allows:
This for that. They weighed the choices—
Kids or rats. What they saw were
Mouths. The interminable feeding.
After he’d led the rats off
In a long snake of furred tribulation,
They pondered. Go back on a vow?
Then what—damnation? It has always been
The old versus the young with their good
Molars, their appetite for more.
A parliament of judges deliberated
While the children rollicked. Heedless
And demanding. A story began: How a land
Of plenty existed, blessed with cherry blossoms,
Peavines and olives. The angel that drove them forth
Years and years ago has come back
With celestial music, a lyric of harmony.
The children listened spellbound
And began to pack for the diaspora.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews