campy – Kevin Trent Boswell

stage is dark

sad violin music
minor key

a single spotlight falls on a

circus clown
with baggy clothes
and floppy shoes

throws his hands up in the air
and wails, forlorn

all those poor,
lonely scribbled
numbers

all crumpled up
on the page

crying themselves
to sleep at night

he looks to the sky,
shouting in an over-the-top,
melodramatic caterwaul

why, oh why,
did I even bother
to buy that box
of pens?!

drops to his knees
in front of a telephone
that sits atop a small table
and sobs quietly
into his hands

curtain closes

the end.

the next day,
a critic writes,

this was the most
pathetic piece of
maudlin garbage
that I’ve seen since
grade school.

the only thing
that might have
improved this pulp…
slightly…

is if the clown
committed seppuku
and then the theater
burned down.

round up the author
of this mawkish nightmare
and have him shot.

Tag: campy