Tuesday Poem: The ordinance of clowns

I heard a man on the radio say
there’s more to clowning than

oversize bow ties, banana skins
bandanas, braces, and

button hole flowers that spray.
No, the Whiteface, the Hobo

the Character, the Auguste
(the one with the big nose)

have slapstick codes to uphold.
Unruly tomfoolery

gives clowns a bad name.
True clowns, he said

hose down each other
not the crowd.

How funnily sad, I thought
how comically ironic.

You can’t just bend the rules
when clowning around.



Sometimes I write poems after listening to interviews on Radio New Zealand (usually while driving into town – the listening, not the writing). Visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week.

Tuesday Poem: A wing and a prayer

The fundamentalists boarded the flight
bearing crosses. Grim-faced, grey-haired women
scarved, not one low decolletage in sight
eyes averted, deferring to their men

the way old handmaidens do. The men got

through security somehow, clay tablets

taped to their chests, bags full of brimstone pots

stones for casting clicking in their pockets.

Silently, on drop-down video screens

Goldenhorse’s female lead was singing.

The clip zoomed in to pink lip-glossed lips, green

long-lashed eyes shadowed black, hair flaming.

I prayed they’d not ask God to smite her down

after our plane unshackled from the ground.


Happy 2012 to all and may your year overflow with poems.

I wrote this sonnet a few years ago after a plane trip. Probably no further explanation is needed. Visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week.