The Stiltwalker - The Night Game

They call me The Fire-Eater.

They call me The Stilt-Walker.

They call me The

Giant, The Dwarf, The Puppet, and the Strings.

But I’ve been the ventriloquist

standing on the high wire shouting out a sermon to pedestrians below.

I’ve been a face-paint, lock-jaw, Chinatown, dummy person just begging for

applause

(Just begging for applause)

I’ve been the popcorn, fried-dough, soda-stained spectator

(Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, waiting for the curtain call)

You brought m a pillow, and a-and a blanket to lay on.

And, damn alright let’s

go.

Close my yes and poof

Burning books in the furnace, burning flags in the street.

Wrapped in the

tye-dye clothes of modernism holding lynch mobs for their disease.

Begging for retroactive retribution, clutching electronic bazookas close in

their pockets and palms

(The angel-faced militia is out for blood and the nighthawks fall from the sky)

I’m the preacher seeking refuge in the third-world standing in the ashes where

the church once stood.

Burned from the cigarette flick from the passenger seat

of a black car SUV

I’m in the blue road, back row tenor in the choir, standing in the synagogue,

kneeling in the mosque screaming «Bring me to your leader baby,

bring me to your God.»

Rip me from these R.E.M.

sleep, blood-stained bedsheets.

Take me to the

hospital to tranquilize and behave

(I'm your bathtub pharmacist, still-birth vampire)

I’m your jester juggling in the marketplace.

Clap for the clown, children.

Feed me to the dogs.

I’m a free-range, free world, free love, free bird

shackled by the culture like a prisoner of war