MARK BLICKLEY

 

MARK BLICKLEY

 

Screaming Mime

 

I should speak out when they abuse

This pasty-faced artist who decided to choose

Being trapped in silence with make up queer

I may not speak, but I can hear.

 

The taunts, the insults, and the hate

Towards street performers who refuse the bait

Of ridiculed anger through vulgar gestures

Believing performance is a continuing semester

 

Of learning to grow within painted smile

Ignore the assholes, concentrate on the child.

Who laughs with joy or open-mouthed wonder

Yet tosses no coins as my stomach thunders

 

Breaking the silence, begging for bread

My intestinal rumblings plead to be fed

A steady diet of human compassion

Through the clinking of coins in an appreciative reaction

 

To my ancient art and enduring hunger

Selling myself like a common whoremonger

Hoping to satisfy an insatiable crowd

In tight fitting Spandex, a seductive shroud

 

Ignoring lewd sneers at my exposed anatomy

That I've twisted and stretched in hopes it would flatter me

As my muscles contort and my body sings

A silent song that once entertained kings

 

 

Gravity Ungrateful

 

Yes, I am dressed in mourning

Dark clothes for a dark time

Yet I yearn to escape

Pandemic imprisonment

With the germ of an idea

That will allow me to soar

Above my confinement

In an airborne threat

Against complacency and boredom

As I reach up to a blue heaven

That promises social distancing

On a cosmic scale,

But that old bitch gravity

Bears down on me,

Slapping me down

Like a petulant child

Crying out

For what she cannot have,

Slammed back

To a blanketed earth

Of red white and blue.

 

 

Gravity Grateful

 

Looking down from high places don’t bother me at all but when I have to look up at things like buildings it makes me nervous cause it feels like some kind of force like a magnet or something is going to pull me up and lift me off the ground which is a lot worse than falling ‘cause if you’re falling down you know you’re falling and that’s that but if you get pulled off the ground and lifted into the air you’re not falling but you could fall at any moment and there’s no end because if you fall you have to land but if you’re lifted up it could go on forever and I hate that.

 

MARK BLICKLEY

MARK BLICKLEY grew up within walking distance of the Bronx Zoo. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center. His latest book is the text-based art collaboration with fine arts photographer Amy Bassin, Dream Streams.