Tonight's Poet Corner: The Comedians
The Comedians by Belinda Roddie We are the comedians. We are the jesters of old Nottingham, fixed bells on our shoe buckles, chewing up microphones and expected to chuckle when we break our canines on the metal. We are given piss water to drink, in hopes that they will get a rise out of us. So we'll crack a sloppy, lockjawed smile over it and pass a barb or two around like a bowl of soggy mixed nuts with the shells already half-cracked and the mess inside soaked by the facility's humidity. We are raised up onto a stage and expected to levitate above the floor just enough to avoid the trap door. We are the comedians. We spend excess time on our self-deprecation. We bite our thumbs at critics and make goofy faces when they paint their faces red in frustration. Don't worry - sticks and stones are meant to hurt us more severely, because in every book, film, TV show, magazine, and other pamphlet stapled together by dry men's fingernails, we are n...