This is an experimental existential poem that uses the metaphor of a carousel to ask questions about the purpose of life. The thinking of the existentialist writers and philosophers Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sarte, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Franz Kafka were the inspiration for this poem.
The merry-go-round twirls like an off-kilter top
Elephants, giraffes, zebras, leopards, hyenas, stallions
Galloping in syncopated rhythm
Noah’s circus contained on a rotating platform
Round ‘n’ round they bob
Body nods to Camus, Sarte, Kirkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka
Eyes fixed autistic-like on some distant point on the curving horizon
The passing colors mixing into the blurred, tortured, psychedelic rainbow of Van Gogh’s palette
Yet the masked animals know not of the absurd
Electrical cords that feed their jerking movements
All part of a carnival designed as a centripetal masquerade
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