Welcome to the Circus
A Collab with Jordan Francis
This piece is a collaboration between Jordan Francis and I. He can be found here at his website, The Mad Poet’s Street Corner.
Welcome to the Circus
Welcome to the circus.
Welcome to the freak show.
Welcome to the modern age.
Where you can be anything you want
Even beyond reason, refuting science.
You can live out any fantasy under the Big Top
All you need is money and they provide the popcorn .
Bread and circuses? No, we want fresh hot popcorn.
At least 10 different varieties, all it costs is your soul.
Where horrors hide in plain sight or don’t even hide anymore
Welcome to the Big Top where nothing quite makes sense .
Welcome to the circus we call life,
Don’t worry. some of the clowns are harmless but many aren’t .
But, we’ve given them a platform anyways.
We gave them a balancing pole and a tightrope and made them walk all while jeering.
They spout their hate filled rhetoric while dancing to the delusional soundtrack in their own heads
But people with no purpose listen in and absorb their message.
The beaten and downtrodden flock to their message of purpose
As do the affluent and the influential
All attendees filling the spectacle seats unthinkingly.
Doomscrollers seeking answers and guidance .
Embrace the chaos it’s the only way to survive in this circus
Welcome to the circus where the Big Top holds two parties and two parties only
Two parties in ever changing multiple rings under technicolor lights
Spouting hate and rhetoric shouting with their forked snake tongues
While the masses lap it up with artificial butter flavoring made from seed oils
Poisoning the body, and poisoning the mind.
Welcome to the circus.
Welcome to the chaos.
Welcome to the land of false prophets, pipe dreams, and undeliverable promises .
The Big Top has room for it all!
Welcome to the land of hypocrisy!
Where money is the only thing that truly talks!
Where sex sells and sponsors abound!
Where misinformation is king!
You’re searching for an exit?
Hate to tell you this,
but they sewed the doors shut long ago
Now they’re triple stitched and reinforced with Kevlar thread
No one ever gets out, after all.
Why even leave infinite popcorn and infinite showtime are all yours under the Big Top?
There is no exit anymore.
We’re all born to live, die, suffer, and hopefully, possibly survive under the big top
There is no true escape, only temporary stays from all the bullshit under the Big Top.
Planning the future under the bleachers ,
We’re dreaming big of a better future
Down here,
down ankle deep in the sawdust and manure—
Where hopefully the goal of freedom
and possibility can take root and grow.