A Catalogue of Serious Oddballs And Resentful Clowns*

A Catalogue of 

Serious Oddballs

And Oddball Clowns

The Following Poems, Written in 2016,

Comprise a Menagerie of Creatures

Who Seem to Exemplify 

The Strange Ethos of

 Coastal Carolina �"

Me Included.

---

-THE FERRYMAN-

And the ferryman sings in the swagger of the sun

And he shouts, and he sings till the loading is done

And he stands like a steeple as the people come aboard; 

Then, he shouts to his bosun, and he sings to the Lord 

And he shouts to the old men, fishing on the pier

And he sings to the seagulls of the broad Cape Fear 

And he shouts to the cold waves, slapping on the prow; 

Then, he sings every blessing that the rules allow. 

-THE SHOP VIPER-

An Observation About the Relationship

 Between Senseless Hatred and Pointless Vanity

Now, with my back turned to Confection Corner

And waiting for the light to change on Church Street,

I could gather myself and figure out what just happened

I had felt the eyes of hatred and didn't know why exactly

But a clerk had been watching me as if I were a feral cat, 

Looking for a place to dig among her darling flowers

So, I asked her how much for the marbled fudge �"

The one in the little box with the glittery ribbon

"Twelve dollars a half-pound," she hissed, 

Eating me alive through the glare

Of her crummy red glasses -

And I muttered, 

‘It must be very special fudge' 

And smirked to think of how 

She made it out of gold!

She hated me 

The moment 

That she saw me, 

And I hated her 

For hating me 

That moment,

Finding my best outrage 

And leaving without fudge.

-THE EVIL PARK KING-

A Flippant Conjecture About the Nature of Divine Mercy,

Or The Story of a Guy Who Was impossible to Like

No one knew why they called him, “Doc”

But he didn’t come across like a doctor

He had a devious-looking face, and he wore

The same suspiciously stained shorts 

To the park all summer

He’d sit there, with his gigantic head thrust forward,

Mocking the pigeons, - And occasionally,

He’d get up and try to kick them

He thought they were “dirty little s***s,”

And he wanted God to know

How he felt about them

One day, Doc stopped coming to the park

Because he got sick and died of cancer,

And he couldn’t be mean anymore

So, some pigeons hopped up

On the bench where Doc used to sit

And casually befouled his throne,

Not even acknowledging the significance

Of a villainous king’s inevitable demise

Still, no one can say for certain if Doc was sent to hell, 

Even though the pigeons gave a s**t about him

Only in the way they actually did.

-THE POPCORN ANGEL-

Or, To Be of One Mind   

With a Woman of Madness

But Smiling at Different Things

---

She threw small handfuls 

Of old popcorn in the air,

Watching the birds flutter briefly

Before they descended on the food

Then, she pretended to scold them, 

As if they were the most 

Favored of her children

Or the most charming 

Of available demons.

She noticed me watching her one day, 

And grinned, assuming that I was 

One with her in thought.

“These sons-of-b*****s 

Are hungry,” she said. 

-THE BEACH CLOWN-

Today is a yellow day!

Yesterday was pink

Or maybe tangerine

But every day is nuanced in some way �"

The silver day that started out copper,

The copper day that ended in gold

But sometimes you get clumsy with your palette

Because you try to avoid stepping on a dead jellyfish, 

Only to splatter your precious colors at the comely feet 

Of socially balanced and far less awkward people

And that makes it a fall day, 

When you can’t comfortably laugh at yourself

Because you have a bad attitude toward

Your role as an agent of comic relief �"

Now, and maybe 

For the rest of your life!

But today is a yellow day, 

Very much like my first day �"

And again, on my birthday, 

And the day afterward

I love yellow days because I am free to laugh at myself 

And the unexpected ways I find to play my part in things.

Therefore: I am the low one of the sea -

And God should not much bother me.