by Bruce Boston
When I was a lad
and little more
a circus came to town,
with lions and bears,
aerialists and clowns,
and a carnival besides,
where a clever barker
caught my ear with
his spiel of horrific
oddities guaranteed,
right before my eyes.
So I spent the money
I had saved and saw
the freaks upon display:
the dog-headed boy
who drank from a bowl,
a creature of a man
grotesque and fearsome,
a gargoyle come to life,
a woman enveloped
by shelves of flesh,
a two-headed lamb,
a dog with six legs,
and other monstrosities,
no sane god would design.
And I dreamed them long,
nightmared them hard,
hard as their suffering lives.
They filled my thoughts
and weighed upon my mind.
Now I am a man
and so much more,
I walk the city streets.
I see the passing crowds,
the carnival flowing by:
the beaten who shuffle
with heads turned down
and shoulders hunched,
the dreamers who wander
with thoughts in the sky,
the arrogant, the meek,
the dazed, the drunkards,
the poseurs and the losers,
and the other lost souls
no kind god would consign.
And I dream them long,
nightmare them hard,
hard as forsaken lives.
They fill my thoughts
and weigh upon my mind.
Normal is a word
and not much more,
a mean, an average,
a dot upon a graph,
a calculated ideal that
can rarely be applied.