Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Pierrot, a lazy, dreamy, goodnatured young man tends to take any sort of job that's going, but never lasts very long in any of them. He has just started   as  a general dogsbody in the "Uni Park" fairground (based on  the real Luna Park in Neuilly, on the edge of Paris, near where Queneau lived). A bizarre and very funny story, of which Martin Esslin said, "from the beginning the characters have a superabundance of wisdom."

     "Take your specs off then," said Tortose to Pierrot, "take your specs off then if you want to look the part."
     Pierrot obeyed and put them carefully away in their case. He could still see about five metres in front of him, but the barrel and the spectators' seats were shrouded in fog.
     "Well then you see," Tortose - Monsieur Tortose - went on, "you grab them when they get up to the cakewalk, you grab them by the wrists, you hold `em tight, and then you plonk them down over the blow-hole. How long you leave them there, that's a matter of tact, there's special cases, you just have to learn. Right. Well have a tryout, I'll be the woman, there you go, I come in from here, when I get to the cakewalk I naturally hesitate, you grab me by the wrists, that's it, and then you lug me along, that's right, and you plonk me down over the blow-hole, very good. Got it?"
     "Got it, Monsieur Tortose."
     "Go down out now then with Petit-Pouce and Paradis and wait for the suckers. Understood?"
     "Understood, Monsieur Tortose."