Boyhood Carnival Poem by Richard (Narad) Eggenberger

Boyhood Carnival

Come on in and see a sight
You'll never see again my man
A giantess as black as night
With enormous feet, an African.

We entered in the darkened tent
And suddenly my heart was filled
With pain and all my being rent
By this tragedy of life distilled.

From her purple swollen lips
No murmur broke, no cry of rage,
Immured within those massive hips
She sat in her flesh as in a cage

And all the sorrow of the earth
Lay in the darkness of those eyes
And all the pain of grotesque birth
And life that's dead before it dies.

As I glanced into her chair
At all her gross deformity,
I looked into her eyes and there
Reflected was a part of me.

Now forty years have passed me by
And there, by the Grace of God, am I.