Poetry Friday: The Dance of the Carousel Horses

I’m trying not to watch the news too obsessively these days, because every time I turn on the TV, it feels as though I’ve wandered into a sort of bizarro world, where each story is more unbelievable than the last. Did you hear the one about the island inhabited solely by penguins that has been slapped with a 10% tariff on exports? Penguins. The island is inhabited by penguins. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

And that’s not even touching on the deep sadness that’s swept over the global library community with the Trump administration’s attack on the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Dark days indeed.

While sitting on my couch, watching all of this madness unfold, a thought popped into my head – this all feels like some kind of carnival ride. It’s like being trapped in a dream, where everything feels off, and you know it’s off, but at the same time it feels so real that you can’t quite tell where the dream stops and reality begins. That thought turned into a poem, which I’m sharing here with you, today:

THE DANCE OF THE CAROUSEL HORSES

Carousel horses prance up and down,

Sweeping the revellers round and round.

Up and down,

Round and round,

The dance of the carousel horses.

I hope you’re able to get off this crazy carousel every now and then – sometimes you just have to disconnect from the 24 hour news cycle and reset your brain. A great way to do that is through Poetry Friday, and the one and only Matt Forrest Esenwine is our host this week. Give him a visit, and congratulate him on his amazing new poetry anthology!