Poetry by Robert Nisbet
Leaving a small dark town, hurrying,
we pass a notice, To the Carnival,
swing homeward over a sweep of bridge,
then glance down at the show itself,
in the valley, in its meadow,
a multi-coloured load of sight and sound.
We see and hear, briefly
the motley morrice of copious ribbon
the comedy notes of oompah-oompah
a cone of helter-skelter red
maybe a hurdy-gurdy grinding
We sense . . . maybe
the sketching of likenesses
the telling of fortunes in shadowed tents
and (as in American country fairs)
a bespectacled girl sitting at a card table,
typing poems for the passing crowds . . .
Stay, stay
oompah, oompah
but our car has to race on, race on . . .
Robert Nisbet, a Welsh writer, was for several years an associate lecturer in creative writing at Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he also worked for a while as an adjunct professor for the Central College of Iowa. His poems appear in Robeson, Fitzgerald and Other Heroes (Prolebooks, 2017). Read Robert’s poem “Later” published in The Bluebird Word‘s January 2023 issue.
