blacktop circus

I hitch-hiked several cross-country trips in the '70's and '80's from Iowa to Boston; Iowa to San Diego, and this poem is an example of one of my first rides. it was indeed 'an experience': a carnie driving a trailer of circus animals, but nonetheless, it was meeting people by the generosity of their hearts and their curiosity to the human experience. I sadly fear those days of trust are gone ...

at the end of my last year of college

with a burning scalp in the sun and the itch

of highway freedom at 55 miles an hour, I stood there with

a stupid smile and my earth shoes planted in the

gravel like one of the burma shave signs

on the side of the road, pointed east.

no map.

I was counting on the like-minded kindness

of drivers pointed in the same direction as

my thumb and one guy stopped with a semi packed full of

elephants, I was aimless; he was

curious; and he asked me

“what about the circus?”

he had a Bozo weeble-wobble compass on his dashboard

and a picture of his girlfriend in full greasepaint, dusting

an emmet kelly five-oclock shadow, and I thought

about it … then I thought about all that shit

behind an elephant and

me with a shovel too small so i said

no.

I waved goodbye in Davenport then

wanted ‘yes’ for all the rest of my brass

carousel ride through life. but what a story

all those beasts and carnies, cargo trailers, ropes

and canvas tentpegs beaten into the ground,

zipped from lonely town to town,

split by KMarts and

their blacktop, whiteline parking lots.

I thought, “not now, the ride will do me just fine.”

and i could safely boast at

parties how I

almost joined the circus.