Stilted Smile

The joyborn free giggles

Of those pig-tailed little girls,

Skips on heat that mingles

To rides humidity's threads.

A flipping coin to those adults,

The plodding resigned sods

Who waver between laughs

And tears.

House, park, carnival or life;

the background is an oblivious spectator

To sundry puppet shows of motley souls,

Celebrating humanity, that mimics convention.

Adrift , bereft of barbed anchors, I watch,

From the solitary island of mind.

My being stares out at the breakwaters,

Unsure of the sea-foam, it's salty sting.

I wish, I would that I had seven-foot legs.

From silence, dragged from the thought,

I hear click-clacking of wood on tile.

And through the pell-mell world world,

Wades a lone stilt-walker

Ploughing on with seven-foot legs,

Walking on a here that's somewhere else.

His blue coat-tails swish ducking heads,

Under red top hat, I wonder where his is.

Stilt-walker, on your wooden feet.

O' Stilt-walker, what do you see?

People ooh their dawning ahhs,

Laughing at the gangly figure

With the odd gait and toed knees.

They collect all their mewling herd

To clutch to cling to the ends,

While shutter-bugs flit and flame

Until the final frame is clicked.

Then without even passing thought

The moths fly, buzzing away,

To the nest shiny draw.

Stilt-walker, on your wooden feet,

Stilt-walker, with your painted face,

O' Stilt-walker, what crosses your mind?

The hesitant clouds are numbered,

Their choice is made for them

And they disperse before the onslaught

Of that resplendent Mr. Noon,

As his goring rays will the mulling crowd

To seek shelters of shade and fan.

I see him unthinkingly shrug

And shuffle to lean on kind wall,

He pulls himself to his throne

Slowly stretching his reaching shanks,

He pulls out a yard of black cloth

That wipes a sweat-logged face,

And undoes those cutting straps

That gaspingly free yearning feet,

And grimaces, straining to bend,

To wearily rub aching toes.

I see the flash of artifice

Turn into a silhouette,

Of a man.

Stilt-walker, on your wooden feet,

Stilt-walker, with your painted face,

Stilt-walker, wearing your stilted smile,

O' Stilt-walker, what do you feel?

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