John Lindley
Roll Up
Death rolls on.
Down here the air smacks of snake oil.
Dave and Davinia, twinned at the hip,
crabwalk from tent to tent
in a free show just once
but everything else costs money.
There's always another sideshow
and always another side -
some dupe, some con in the 10 in 1:
a grotto where a bored mermaid,
slicked in fins,
swims the dry Mississippi air;
a lair where women sport beards
with the texture of hemp;
an inner sanctum of babies,
hydra-headed, and midgets on stilts
and It's only a buck, just one slim dollar
for the Mysteries of the Universe.
Elmer goes where he's told,
sleeps awake with the props in a trailer,
comes out at showtime.
And he's never been so decorated:
bank heists and stick-ups
and twenty-six slayings to his name.
He turns legend for the day
on a rich litany of lies.
People gawp in belief.
A toffee apple sun sets
in a cotton candy sky.
The ferris wheel ticks to its conclusion.
The carnival pulls pegs,
drops canvas, loads trucks.
Across America mummies move out.
Death rolls on.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The