The Clown Service
“Here we go again,” as Grimaldi would say “busting out,” or in, to the Holy Trinity. First grey February of the year and damp London’s asplash with ruffle collars, baggy pants, big shoes that rub and squeak one another like old friends. I’m all a-sweat under the full white face, the one that takes an hour to paint. So little call now for that, the artistry – the tradition. Stood like some odd couple, I curtsey blue wig to hassock – I’m working my “business” by honking the nose by twisting my kipper tie. The emcee recites our prayer and I repeat, nod at old “Rickets” spread thin in his tramp, at the back - worked Islington for 30 years. “Chins,” appears slack at his side with her cockscomb wobbling jolly red, a tiny pink brolly cuts above her head. As always, the audience travels. Small bread and butter faces and hands, giggles and pointing. One lip shakes uncertain and a baker’s dozen strain against the urge to fall over our feet, squirt a flower, whilst producing piles of hankies from sleeves to create a smile, a snort. Then candles are lit against the lilt of Send in the clowns. Off and out we go, parade into town, one last show toward Camden, peeling away in ones and pairs and bunches. The drizzle adds a final sheen to motley and slap, faces flag and slip off as neat as a banana skin gag.
*Once a year Clown International hold a service at Holy Trinity Church, Dalston, London. This is to honour clowns who have passed on and remember Joseph Grimaldi.
International Man of Mystery
You were the Mr Benn living cartoon of our childhood
usually abroad at some far away store, trying
on the revolve-a-door disguises
of a hundred different men. You’d
return with scars, dangerous toys with glass eyes,
secrets in briefcases.
You were
a veritable man from U.N.C.L.E, back then,
one of the Monkeys, Rod Stewart, Freddie Mercury.
At home
we never knew who you’d be, we’d place bets
with buttons and two penny pieces. Some days
you’d be Indiana Jones, others
James Bond (played by Roger Moore). You
might be a sailor; a traveller, a navy man
pulling coloured flags out of your sleeves, tapping
morse code on the dining table
with the tip of a pale fingernail.
Perhaps
you’d be a professor straight off BBC 2,
with half-moon glasses and a pipe,
(later gobbled
by the thaw of a hungry snowman) Once,
you were Acker Bilk
although we all agreed
you never quite pulled that off. You
chameleon’d.
Then one day,
you encouraged us
to try on costumes of our own
a teacher, a poet, a painter, a leader
a mother, a sister, a daughter.
An artist of the miniature moss gardens
found in empty outside pools, garnered
with beech nuts, spun with stolen petals,
sea glass letters
snail trail sentences.
You taught me
about the power of fake moustaches,
the quick-handed
change of a hat.
Rocket at the Moon
Who cares about the gauzy ball, shivering in its dawn taffeta; it’s all too obvious negligee. Not least billionaires, who at best, find it blocks out their pointillist star views, their satellite dot dot dashes. They might argue it hangs, only fodder now for fallen song writers and poets (pity us) or, a spectacle for the last young lovers, when they look up confused and rare from their phones. (No cheese even, up there) It may stir the tide, rock the last old fishermen to sleep, encased in creaking timber, but who are we, the past to stand in the way of better Wifi? We’ll line up (virtually of course) to buy tickets, ordering telescopes and binoculars, Pulling our infants onto our shoulders to peek through 3D glasses, through screens and phones. The explosion (not to be missed) will be fact checked replayed relayed on tik-tok youtube, Re-enacted. Redacted. Removed. Even the rights to this, are theirs alone.
Jennie E. Owen’s writing has been widely published online, in literary journals and anthologies. She teaches Creative Writing for The Open University and lives in Lancashire, UK with her husband and three children. She is currently working towards her PhD with Manchester Metropolitan University.
Flight of the dragonfly 