It's 1954 and Emmett Kelly remembers

the Hartford, Connecticut, circus fire,
1944: the big tent went up,

and people panicked like animals,
but the big cats got strangely calm.

The famous clown rushed from
the small dressing-tent in makeup,

managed more authority than a cop
because a clown's not supposed

to speak, so when he spoke,
the wild eyed customers listened.

They let him save their lives
with a frown.  Back in his tent,

he said to Willie in the mirror,
"No show tonight. No show

in Clown Alley."  Other clowns
entered, hysterical, said who'd lived,

who hadn't. (168 hadn't.)
"You were wonderful," they told Emmett,

who had removed half of Willie's face.
As Kelly he shrugged. "I did what I could."

Now in 1954, Madison Square Garden,
Emmett's put on half of Willie's face.

He feels weary.  He tells an interviewer,
"Clowning is nothing you can study for."



hans ostrom 2017

The Economy Needs the Poor

“The economy needs the poor,” says

a wee lad  on the precipice of a bachelor

of arts in economics to me. He’s the son

of some remote dickhead CEO in France

One of the brightest students I’ve ever taught,

a Black and Latina woman from

Oakland (she likes the 49ers, I like the

Raiders, we riff on that) says, “The

political science students on campus

are the least culturally competent—

they’re not equipped for this society.”

Today, this month, November 2012,

I think, well, Whiteness will have its

way: cocaine-speed-meth capitalism, fuck-you-

we’re going to fucking war, if you’re a

thinking person, then go fuck yourself,

we will dominate you, we always have,

so suck our illiterate radioactive dicks.

 

Old, I wish to God it would be different

for the thinking young I know.  You don’t

know how much I wish that this were so.

I wish God would empower them.

And then I look at the mainstream shit

they all must countenance, and I think,

“God damn it, the demons have won.

The motherfucking super-rich have won.”

Hans Ostrom, 2012