Thursday, June 25, 2009

My Fair Lady

through gate and
lost in you my
carnival girl,
all laughter and wonder and awe,
with shouts of step right up,
three balls for a buck,
neon spinning dizzy through
shrieks and squeals and flashbulbs and
crackle pop calliope spilling
from the fun house from
the hall of mirrors from
the winking stars themselves with

things all and every like a state fair you carry
the brightest the fullest the best of the best
all blue ribbons in
blonde hair, blue sashes
on sundresses,
cornstalks high as houses and
wide brimmed hats,
from the top of the Ferris
to the mock up of Paris with
rickety rides and shady jakes pressing buttons
just dicey enough to ride just
solid enough to trust

and I am running around
too excited to talk too busy to
cry if I fall like a kid all
cotton candy fingered and
pop fizz flustered so alive you
wonder if there was life before if there is
life after but you don’t really care you’re so
rich in moments and in

you, my circus girl,
my peanutsawdusthighwire day,
every day,
smile like a midair no net somersault and held breath
catch
that stops five hundred
hearts at once
and stilt men spider by tossing
confetti and clowns pour from a car while two small
eyes,
so wide,
so wide,
and fingers forget and
a balloon slips up
and up
past the moon
into a great and grinning
heaven....


[mid 90's. next week is july - yay!]

9 comments:

K.Lawson Gilbert said...

This is my very favorite of your poems...I know I say that everytime! I feel like I just got off the rollercoaster! It's that heady! Fantastic!

you, my circus girl,
my peanutsawdusthighwire day,
every day,
smile like a midair no net somersault and held
breath
catch
that stops five hundred
hearts at once

WOW! Can I just say you are a fabulous poet! This is soooo worthy of publication. I can see it right now in the Santa Barbara Review!

"See" you soon.

gerry boyd said...

Bravo! That is all.

trooping with crows said...

"from the top of the Ferris to the mock up of Paris" this line made me smile WIDE!

What an exciting poem! This one is really alive. It really just made me feel like there is so much fun in life despite all the crap that we must deal with from day to day.
Excellent! Hope your "hiatus" is going well! ;)

Amritorupa Kanjilal said...

i really missed your poetry joaquin... this one was so full of life :)

and if you can, do visit me ... i posted a new poem.

Karen said...

This is your old stuff? Pull out more, joaquin! You are a mondern ee cummings!

I love all of it, and others have quoted wonderful lines. This, too, is perfection:

"and fingers forget and
a balloon slips up
and up
past the moon
into a great and grinning
heaven...."

"grinning heaven" - This is.

Aniket Thakkar said...

Damn. K beat me to picking my fav lines. Though the whole poem is awesome. You choreograph you words and they dance so beautifully in front of us.

Yay. You'll be back next week. :P

Catherine Vibert said...

This is fabulous.

Julie said...

I love it! I got beat to my fav lines, too. That's what I get for being so damn slow. Ha! Ha! Beautiful work. It's so good to see you here.

Jannie Funster said...

Oh, I soooooo was there for all of this.

Cotton candy please!