I am a clown, a collector of moments.  The moments add and add until

no one understands the totals but me: the clown.  The moments of a

million lives tick past and are gone.  The millions of faces you pass in

crowds on the street are mine, I have claimed them as my own.  They

add up to me and become me.  I am a clown, a total of moments.

 

A poet saw the apparition of faces in the crowd as petals on a wet

black bough distillng a cacophony of time to fourteen words.  I reduce

it further to somersaults, backflips; to the smallest gesture of my

hand.  With my sad-funny show I return it to the crowd from where it

came.  I am a clown collecting moments.

 

The moments of a million lives tick past and are lost but for me.  My

painted face is the composition of all the faces I have seen, do you

recognize yourself and the lost moments of a life.  I am the mirror

bearing your reflection.  Look closely.  Look closely to where you

have been and to where you will go.  I am a clown reflecting time.

 

                              I have seen. . .

                      

                                         a mother

                                               

                                                   a child

          

        the child runs and falls the mother feels pain

 

                       the child

             

                                  grows and learns

 

                       seeing

 

                                  a blade of grass

    

                       feeling

 

                                  the sun shine

 

                                  the wind blow

 

                                                 the moments pass. . .

 

I saw a mother grow old and is gone

the child a child no longer the moments

pass caught in the spin of a life

                       

                       love is the first frozen moment

                       time caught and held between

                       two people frozen then suddenly

                       ended. . .

                                                 the life spins

 

I have seen. . .

 

              the moments add and add to a life

              I saw love found and lost on my

              face I wear the green paint of jealousy

              and red the colour of anger

              I wear the final black of death

 

Was it you I saw

 

             staring from the window at the street below

             watching the crowds like time passing

             I watched you watch the drunk stumble

             and fall I saw you see

 

                            the child cry

              

             the old woman mumble to herself

 

                                                                       passing

 

             businessmen adding totals

                                                          passing 

 

             a boy on a bike

 

                                         passing

 

             two lovers

 

                                 passing

 

             the angry man

 

                                         passing  

 

             I watched you watching the crowd, like time, passing

             and the hands on the clock moved forward. . .   

 

 

I am a clown, a collector of moments.  The moments add and add until 

no one understands the totals but me, the clown.  The moments of a 

million lives tick past and are gone.  The millions of faces you pass in

crowds on the street are mine, I have claimed them as my own.  They 

add up to me and become me.  I am a clown, a total of moments.

 

                     

                                             *written with Denise Clarke

                                                                  inspired by Heinrich Boll