Argument: an orange peeled, a challenge made, and the Clown War atrocious.We’re getting to the point where elation and despair meet through the appearance of a clown – that envy, that death, that knightly shadow, and dwarfish stare.
This is about passion, about PASSION, which turns despair to elation and elation to action and action to the future of Lathynarn the Knight.
“We are in a cage whose bars
are arms and nylon legs
of clowns with custard pies
and rubber-strung guitars.
“The floor squared off
by two-foot shoes left tapping
a paradiddle inbetween
the comic coughs.
“I’m sure the floor
is a carpet of faces,
a laughing, gurning audience
begging, screaming for the door.
“I’m sure the upside
is open to the gloried stars
had there been gloried stars
shining down on the inside.
“I’m sure, I’m sure…
the magic of a circus dust
holds us in this rainbow
with its glitter, dust and stoor.”
One clown – jester – knight stares over at us - Sir Dagonet peels an orange – peeling an orange takes you out of life, to the concentration required to make an act of an art which is only as good as the fruit presented – Dagonet can peel in a single strand – he is a master of the art of stolen citrus plus golden hand.
[I’ve always found the peeling of an orange perverse, some alien act we acquired from beyond the fern frond of our cluster of galaxies – it takes normality and crushes it to a wonder – and I watched Dagonet carefully take skin from pith from fruit and I was all a-wonder…]
My master pulled his shoulders back, yanked his sword from his armour, lifted visor and spat on the peel dropping down from the segments:
“Knighted
in comedy
and left to struggle afterwards.
After words of the King
vanished each day…”
He rhymed:
“The King never rated you anyway.
You were a mess! he laughed all of your jokes away
as unfunny and grim –
you did not amuse him
you midget-dwarf, shrunken Sir Dagonet.
“You fooled the King into a knighting
by convincing him you were delighting
his beauty, the Queen,
while the Crowd inbetween
forced a snigger at your ev’ry sighting.
“Your short-sighted, knighted court-jester’s
dirty mac is a greasy sou’wester –
you flash at the ladies
who scream and relay: ‘He’s
a pervert, a creep, a sex-pester!’
“So sober up and cut down the joking –
you have convinced all these clowns into smoking
their life through your battle,
this pram-flung lost rattle,
that leaves all participants choking.
“Now fight me, now challenge your serviette
of armour ‘gainst my leatherstrong letraset
of armour secure
and passion so pure –
pick up your sword and fight me, Sir Dagonet!”
The orange peel fell from his hands – the orange peel fell to the floor – the orange peel crumpled, repositioned itself – and the jester-knight, Dagonet, swore:
“I know
what she can be –
do you remember her spiral
twisting round through the trees
some decades ago?
“Her name
will never call
itself to your limited lips
and your primitive hands
will not hold her hips.
“Her face
will never say
its eyes to your near-sighted eyes,
her mouth to your far-sight,
her thighs to your thighs.
“She is,
but not for you
and never to you, and never
for you, and never still
for you forever.”
I had, I confess, forgotten her – that spinning woman through the trees, in the forest, churning wood to Thomas to herbs, to the plain and Quixana, to the tower, the underground and finally these last, these lame, these cold-forgotten, caged-forming and forsaken and famously fostering clowns.
Who had she been? it seems Sir Dagonet knows… he rhymed a prophecy back to my Lathynarn:
“You took on Dear Fame and were wanting
in all manner of tasks, you were flaunting
your fools and your falls,
your hen-pecked crow calls
and ended up in a barrel of taunting.”
Lathy launched at him with sword and fury, but Dagonet stepped aside – my master clattered into the cage and crumbled on the floor: the clowns forming the bars all laughed at his falling – a laughing, a laughing, a war cry, a calling of battle to be done and fighting-yes-fighting-when-has-the-fighting-begun?
***
The Clown War – it’s a gentle affair – but how does it begin?
First, realise that there are no sides but the clown’s sole own – no enemy but the mass and rabble all around – each clown for himself and one buttonhole skoosh against all – like a bumblebee loose on a railway carriage passageway or hall.
Next, a pie thrown – a hooter burst water, a hat burnt or stolen or juggled to the air – each clown for herself and one whiteface against all – like buildings falling down, like einstürzende neubauten – it’s all a joke with those honky-tonk old monkeyshines, who slip on their banana peels, the world at their feet, pretending they are dancers, and falling, with no rhythm, to defeat.
And last, the red noses are removed to show the reason for their being: I say, I say, I say – wherefore the nose of a clown so removable? to cover the scar of the nose that was removed, clean bitten and ripped by the teeth of other clowns – each smitten by the taste of the honker, the beak, the schnozzle…
Lathynarn stood up as all comedy broke loose and the cage collapsed to the Clown War surrounding – noise, riot and rabble, and scrabble of fingers to eyes and teeth to nose and knees to balls and fists to mouths and kidneys and throats.
We are witnessing an atrocity of clowns – and those in retreat are prone to that atrocity.
***
“Come boy,
now returning
from adventuring is our aim
and then to make my name
(… he turns to the painted, iron-canvassed sky, his nose now bleeding…)
Now what to do?”
