David McGimpsey

The Duke of Carleton, originally uploaded by johnwmacdonald.

Rock on Mr. McGimpsey.

KoKo

There was no doubt about my boss:
he was one of the great defectives.
He claimed our poor profits in the recession
stemmed from his ‘fear of circus clowns.’

You have to be careful around a guy like that:
test your breath, shoelaces Oxford-style—
one winter afternoon, about a month
after the operation on my foot,

I limped aggressively into the office
and finally told a co-worker to shutup.
My boss overheard, grabbed me and said,
“you’re not the sharpest pencil in the box, are you?”

The irony was I ended up working as a clown
in front of a flower shop right there on 6th avenue.
And the boss would walk by, smelling like Paco Rabanne
And I was going shutup, shutup, shutup.

From Lardcake, by David McGimpsey.

Check out Arc Magazine where Alessandro Porco offers a reading of McGimpsey's poem.