Tweetspeak Poetry

Circus & Carnival Poetry and Photo Prompt: Run Away With the Circus

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circus_&_carnival
You’re in a thankless job and fed up with authority. You feel like life needs more thrills and adventure. You’ve decided… it’s time to make a change. If you’re ready to climb the ladder in a new and exciting profession, have we got the career for you!

But first, we need you to answer a few simple questions: Do you like candy apples and elephants? Do you want to strut in sequins and paint? Do you feel comfortable being shot out of a cannon? If so, the circus life is for you! Go ahead. Quit your stagnate job, pack a bag, and jump aboard the next circus train. Let your potential soar.

Benefits include: All the cotton candy you can eat, daily applause, and lion-bathing privileges.

Try It

Write a Poem

There’s something alluring about leaving behind the prosaic predictability of everyday life and embracing the gypsy-hearted existence of the traveling circus. Choose your circus skill and write a poem about it. Will you be a trapeze artist? A clown? Perform acrobatics? Tame lions? You can even choose to be the Ring Master. (Click here for more circus act ideas.) This is your chance to run away with the circus and be the star of the show. Share your poem with us in the comments. We’ll be in the grandstand cheering. 🙂

Take a Picture

Find an object to photograph that will illustrate your secret desire to run away with the circus. (For circus act ideas, see above, under Write a Poem.) Sequins, paint, a piece of unusual clothing? Something to tame or make wild? Maybe even an unexpected selfie. Surprise yourself (and us).

Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem by Maureen we enjoyed:

Their hair like streamers,
so few were left dreamers
while upside down. Such
clowns! No more booted,
they hooted and rooted
just once before touching,
then clutching cleared ground.

—by Maureen Doallas

Photo by Stephano Montagner, Creative Commons via Flickr.

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Heather Eure
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Comments

    • Donna says

      Great poem, Maureen! I said the same thing about roller coasters, until one day I didn’t. Now I end that sentence each time with ‘again.’

      Reply

    • Sandra Heska King says

      This doesn’t relate to today’s prompt, but I wrote this dream poem on my blog a few weeks ago. For Maureen and Heather. (This was about our own Laura B) 🙂

      Laura and I and a Ferris Wheel

      Laura had an emergency at work that morning,
      but first we–she and her husband and I–
      took a spin on a giant Ferris wheel,
      once known as a “pleasure wheel,”
      but today a playdate wheel.

      We went up, up, up…
      but at the top, just before the descent,
      my car flipped upside down,
      and I slipped out until my feet caught.
      Be still, I told myself.
      I noted the netting that surrounded us
      and relaxed into the hanging.

      Then the car righted itself,
      and the wheel turned into a coaster that sped
      down a steep hill to its final stop.
      Laura jumped off, tucked a squirrel under her arm,
      and ran to work.

      Reply

  3. Robbie Pruitt says

    Gypsy Road

    Never told my folks I was leaving.
    I just took to the rails three cites over,
    where there were rumors
    of beautiful women
    swinging from the air
    and walking on tight ropes
    in outfits that were barely there.
    One city turned into another
    and then on to another still.
    After countless shows and evenings
    of scooping up the aftermath,
    months had passed and time wore on.
    I had barely gotten her name.
    When I heard she had taken to the road,
    I wished I had never came.
    Regret filled my weary and restless soul.
    Time had worn me thin and had taken its toll.
    The road seemed longer than I thought it had been.
    They had me securing lines and tying them in.
    I rarely looked up anymore, as the show would begin.
    Down that old and dusty gypsy road, my mind would wander.
    “What would have been? Where is she now?” I would ponder.
    As the gypsy road beckoned my name, I would shovel
    and everything, except for her, would be the same.

    © August 24, 2015, Robbie Pruitt

    Reply

  4. Donna Z Falcone says

    To answer your questions, yes to everything but the strutting and the cannon. 😉

    Here is where I went – straight to the Trapeze. Sigh. I suppose I’ve never quite gotten over missing the act during my one and only trip to the circus…. ever.

    The Flying Walenkas

    Winnie Walenka is worn
    Setting out on her climb to the sky.
    Today marks her 6,000th trip up the pole,
    Each time, Winnie asks herself why.

    Hand over hand over barefooted foot
    Ignoring the ache in her spine.
    Winnie Walenka ascends to the top
    And Winnie is not feeling fine.

    Her wrists are both sore, her knees clack and click
    The cheer of the crowd makes her cringe.
    Then, there at the top, waits the sturdy fly bar
    Time to add to the thrill seekers’ binge.

    And under the big top, across center ring
    Perched high on another platform,
    She sees him. Her heart skips. He gives her a wink.
    She knows that his hands will be warm.

    Wally Walenka now swings by his knees
    And he throws her a kiss from mid air
    Winnie forgets every ache, stepping off.
    She sails toward her Wally, out there.

    A few passes over the net down below.
    The crowd holds its collective breath.
    As Winnie swings into a triple layout
    The slightest miscount would mean death.

    But Wally, he grabs her on his return swing
    Two souls held up by cabled lines.
    And together they drop to the net down below
    Like the other five thousand and ninety-nine times.

    Reply

  5. Monica Sharman says

    My balancing act is more along the lines
    of a cirque de la lune.
    But it’s not just a phase, this teetering
    on taut wires, arms outstretched
    to flailing, less counterbalance than
    oscillation from one off-kilter to another.
    Craters and peaks eclipsed
    by stage-light shadows
    never revealing the far side.

    Reply

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