Narrative Poem: Circus Peanuts.

 

One.

The weather had been unsettled

for the past several weeks.

In fact, it had been downright weird.

 The clouds seemed thicker and heavier.

Still white, but glowering.

And updrafts were terrible!

Every time you swept up a pile of dirt

it was immediately blown into the sky.

Dust devils were everywhere, sucking up trash

like vacuum cleaners and

throwing around lawn furniture.

The sun would come out and it would

rain. The clouds would cover the

sky and the heat was unbearable. 

Like a sauna.

The New York Times said it was

'Global Warming on a Rampage.'

Fox News commentators blamed it

on Johnny Depp somehow.

The old lady next door to me

called it 'The Harrowing of Hell.'

But she was nuttier than a fruitcake.

All in all, the weather appeared to 

be up to something.

Something beyond the ken

of meteorology. 

It had its own purpose

and I felt cold hostility

against me and my kind.

Two

Then it started to snow.

In June.

But the snow drifted down

to the ground and immediately

sprang back up again into the

sky.

It didn't stay and melt.

And when it stopped snowing

the sun stayed behind a haze.

And the haze took shape

as mountains and lakes,

valleys and rivers,

vast plains and dark

green pine forests.

Up in the sky.

Upside down from us.

The old lady next door

said it was a new heaven

and a new earth.

I didn't know what to think.

When scientists trained their

telescopes on it, there was

nothing there to see.

The Air Force sent jet fighters

into the floating mountains

and rivers, but the planes flew

right through them as if they

were mirages.

Which, I guess, they were.

You could see them clearly with

the naked eye,

but not with a dead telescope.

A new land, an imaginary place, 

a far apparitional country, 

uncharted and unpeopled.

We took to sitting outside

all day long, looking up at

the new landscape, waiting

to see what would develop.

Gradually it grew closer to us,

almost touching the skyscrapers

downtown.

And then birds and animals 

appeared up in the cloud lands.

There were zebras and toucans,

running and flying right above our heads.

I thought they looked sleepy and

discontented. 

Three

The new world above was silent.

And no odors drifted down. No scent

of dung or blossoms.

Then one day people began

walking around up there.

They looked and dressed just like us.

Young and old. Male and female.

I shouted myself hoarse trying to

make contact with them.

So did others. We sent up rockets.

But they ignored us, going about

their otherworldly business.

Until the day they began to send

down their message to us.

The day the orange circus peanuts

began falling on us. On the land

and the sea.

Reeking of banana oil, each circus

peanut was inscribed with

'Go back to where you came from.'

 The soft candies piled up, choking

rivers, blocking highways, poisoning

the oceans as fish sickened on the

dissolved corn syrup and pectin. 

Our earth was being smothered.

By a mirage. By strangers. 

By our doppelgangers. 

"Why?" I sobbed at the last,

as the circus peanuts pushed in

my windows and the front door.

"Why are you doing this to us?"

"We were here first, so where can

we go back to?"

Their silence remained unbroken,

but the circus peanuts stopped falling.

And I started a chiasmus and chant,

until the crazy old lady next door called

the cops to complain about the noise.