Poem – Carnival (By David Russell)

Carnival

That peacock opulence,

Swarming on strutting grime;

That massed ecstasy, squeezing itself,

Short-breathed, near suffocation;

That sound-abandonment, seeming to plunge

To deafness’s peace;

Yet keeping those maimed faculties alive,

Ever denying their last fulfilment.

 

Maybe it’s only I and it,

I, starting in the middle

And it, commensurate with my idea

Of my own size?

 

Maybe I didn’t grow

To match its quarter million,

Or maybe I didn’t shrink that far.

 

Yet never could I mar

That general bliss,

For truth is in strong feeling

And critics never bring their rules

To taboos’ strength.

 

[su_david_russell_speculum]