A clown alley careens in, filled to overload,

Ridiculous numbers pratfalling from their funny car.

The crowd roars (as expected), snorts of childish delight.

Women in holiday clothes, men making light

Of ubiquitous sawdust as handy substitute slop jar.

Cotton-candy smeared tongues, roasted peanut-breaths ferment,  

All forgetting in here for now how

Outside this tent, nightmares invade their slumbers, nightmares with eternal pall

To be afraid, even of clowns, and especially wary of the odd duck

Anyone brighter or less bright, bigger, smaller, darker, out of luck

Even to avoid albinos with no color at all.

How easily adults laugh here in a three-ring circus tent,

Safe in the orchestrated extravaganza of mock danger.

Performing jumbos, trained tigers, human bodies sent

Flying like monkeys or cannon ball, tight-rope walkers in tulle.

A freak show in full view, (civil towns keep such hidden by arcane rule),

Blips or blimps of genetic variation on garish display.

In the gaggle of lookers, hearts feel neither pity nor kinship,

Lost in awe because here, there are only false scares,

Death-defying acts, managed, controlled, who knows how?

For now.

From Pennsylvania Avenue to Tiananmen Square

The Palace in Damascus to Pyongyang to Main Street USA,

The ring master slides out of the spotlight on cue.

But some of us see him. Yes, just a few.

He holds the script and pockets the profit.

It happens, how?

For now.