Day 12 - "The Curio-cart man"

Good day, eh, and welcome to day 12.
(a little Bob & Doug McKenzie for you this morning.)

Today, I'm in a pretty good poetic mood. Things are rough at the moment, but of course there are diamonds to be found nonetheless. At my new job my shift doesn't start until 10:30 so I get a little bit of free time in the morning to compose myself and kind of gear-into the work-day. True, it's pretty disgusting to have to work from 10:30 AM til 8:00 PM on a beautiful Saturday, but this is the price we pay, I suppose, for our extremely modest lifestyle. C'est la vie, eh?

Nevertheless, I've even started a new poem this morning based on some conversations I had yesterday and I am feeling rather spritely in terms of what poem I'd like to post this morning - something new, unexpected, and out of the ordinary for what this blog is used to. A real 'wake up call' this morning, as it were. :)

The second half of my book is appropriately called "Whims" and these are the poems which have more of a fantastic, fable-like, nursery rhyme-based formula to them (which is what most of my favorite kinds of poems possess in some form or another - Ray Bradbury is great at this, even in his more serious works!) This particular poem is a sweet little narrative that had taken me quite a long time to write given the strictures of the rhyme scheme and format I adopted, but in the end I think it turned out quite well. It's a poem for everyone who has ever, regrettably, become a responsible person in this life and has given way to duty and toil where childish happiness and wonder used to roam free. It reminds us that no matter how old we are or how long-lost that part of our lives feels it is still there, somewhere down inside, still patiently waiting to emerge in hopes that someday we'll realize that maybe it was the right way to be all along. Enjoy.


"The Curio-cart man"


Whatever became of the Curio-cart man
The peddler of charms in his colorful stand
Full of wares and wee trinkets
Disappeared?
Who could think it?
For his market was once high in demand

O how the young ones chased him so
And followed his wagon wherever he’d go
Begging toys and sweet vittles
While he’d tell
Them all riddles
And make their minds swim to and fro

He was glad to oblige, out parading his mart
Spouting off jolly figaries and whittling darts
Playing games like a child
While the aged
All the while
Were most eager to see him depart

Still he’d swell up the dreams of the children he met
And believe in their fancies; every one of them set
Like bright jewels in his crown
As the old ones
Would frown
On most frivolous waste they would come to regret

For what use could there be in the tending of naught
That could ever be useful beyond idle thought?
So at night they would scorn
That man had
Ever been born
And the curio-cart man had since sensed them distraught

So with most heavy heart, like many times come before
He prepared all his trappings and locked up his store
And though the children would pout
He knew time
Had run out
That if he was to bide he’d be thrown out the door

But there was part of him yearned to be there one more day
To tell just one more tale or to join in their play
To give last bits of joy
To each girl
And each boy
Who would spend most their lives in a miserable way

For he’d seen it was so in his journeys’ great stride
That men’s souls become trapped in a net they provide
Made of duties and chores
And the rest
Of life’s bores
And not long do they have to enjoy what’s inside

But from hence he did turn, and on down that old road -
The pike that leads forth from the ones we well know -
With a tune and a laugh
He’d gone on
With his path
For ‘twas never his aim to remain fixed so

Yet he’d left late in evening; a strange act to some
Though the antsy clerk knew it the best time to run
As all hopes and dear wishes
Are best left
Quite fictitious
If there’s naught left to wonder, then his craft is undone

And while most have forgotten that Curio-cart man
The peddler of charms in his colorful stand
There are old ones whose dreams
Are still within
Their means
But all hopes of their growth have long gone from this land

Though surely it wasn’t the cart and its things
That had ever been what made the youthful ones spring
It was something their own
As the man
Had well known
Though his song had been sung, he knew they could still sing

And whatever became of that silly old fool
Made no difference to those who had younglings to school
But at night in their beds
They’d still dance
In their heads
With that bright laughing fellow under mystical rule

Of a kind that’s not bounded by simplest fate -
That can never be caged by mere toils that may wait -
For deep down in our hearts
There’s a man
And his cart
Who knows that it’s never, quite ever too late

To be simple again, and live happy and free
As the child once before could now return to be
But if only in sleep
Is where he
Seems to keep
Then each night we’ll return to his sweet memory

For now we know sure what became of our dreams
And the rusty old cart on which every one leans
As we await its return
In hopes that
We might learn
That the child deep inside is wiser than he seems


- Joshua Clarke