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Lost Your Clown

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An applauding audience

rat dung on the carpet

yes, remember

the perfumed summer

cold pennies

we would lay on the railroad tracks

and my necklace

with one jewelled eye

your clothing of cinnamon colour

mornings of breathing

with the lights left on

surviving the shrilling gull’s song

breathing

wax, humidity, hand-prints on the wall.

From you a hot glow

swelled in your snare

tiny tedious nights

in your asylum of approvals

and secret judgements

I would squirm

dry

thirsty

when you’d come home

pockets full of food and false friendship

I would rock and weep

near the tape recorder

stabbing sorrow

in my isolated aquarium

tossing pebbles to the ceiling

watch them hit

and laugh out loud

 

I want you to know

your theatre is bare

nobody lingers for you

gifted pretender

of deliverance.

 

Take flight

take your guru condescending cold

it’s getting easier to be alive.

 

 

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Copyright © 1989 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Joshua’s Shoulder was published  in 1989 by The Plowman, written by Allison Grayhurst under the pseudonym of Jocelyn Kain.

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Published in “The Peregrine Muse” April 2018

https://sites.google.com/site/theperegrinemuseii/home/grayhurst

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First published in “The Plowman: A Journal of International Poetry” 1989

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You can listen to this poem by clicking below:

 

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