poem

 The Entertainer

It started as an act of whimsy—

Whenever I saw a group of people

Facing the same direction

Silently waiting for something

To happen, like a professor to show up for class

Or a receptionist to call their name 

I would rise, stand before them 

And begin to entertain.

The first time was a long narrative joke

Involving summer squash, a mastodon and Farmer John

But I blew the punch line. I fucked it all up. 

After that I got better—

Acquired patience, developed a drawling cadence

And a better sense of timing.   

When the laughter died down I would tell another

And then another and another it became a goddam stand up act 

But I got tired of only jokes.

I began to lecture on things I knew or had recently read about—

Plate tectonics, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics,

The rationale for extended lymph node dissections in gastric cancers.

Word got out about me, let me tell you. 

It turned into a nice little side hustle. 

Doctor’s and dentist’s offices came calling

There was steady work at the DMV

I even worked a few funerals. 

But I ran out of pure knowledge and stopped being funny and had to take things in a completely different direction

Didn't want to become repetitive or even derivative.  

Delusionally, fancied myself some kind of artist?!?!

I began to theorize origin stories of every lasting cliche 

A man in Kyoto who had a bird in the hand but two in the bush 

And starving twins at home 

And a beautiful girlfriend on the other side of town.

The critic who ran out of time and judged 

The first folio of Shakespeare by its cover 

The clueless young doctor who once told an anxious wife

That every cloud has a silver lining

Just as the overhead PA beckoned Dr Parker to please call the morgue.

I ad libbed lyrics for songs that aren’t musically possible to play.

Rendered soliloquies of random middle class bros 

Lamenting their life’s lack of any real tragedy.

I would stand there in waiting rooms in bus stations on intermission stages

And do my best to entertain

All those condemned to wait until their name was called

Or it got late and lights turned off and everyone just went home.  

One day I ran out of things to say entirely—

Totally unplanned and unexpected. 

It happened at a Giant Eagle MarketDistrict

(Which is just another kind of super-duper supermarket).

Just when I seized the focal point of attention 

All I could do was smile wryly

While my mind went utterly blank.

All these people in the checkout line

Thought I was the bag boy 

And not a very industrious one, at that.

But no, I had been hired to amuse and distract.

I’m standing there mutely even now 

Waiting for the perfect moment 

When the customer takes their receipt

To tell them the secret

That will either change the moral arc of their life 

Or at least reassure them that, yes, we all get it 

It’s all rather absurd, yes, yes indeed, yessiree.

I’m the quiet guy standing alone at a party, pretending to be interested in a plant

I’m the idiot walking his dog with a bungee cord when you gaze out your window

I’m the love of your life, across from you at dinner

Too tongue tied to speak, for your beauty and your eyes and your bottom lip….

It’s all part of the entertainment 

11/19/24