The Great Commotion Opera & Entreaters Society

begged me to sit and play. So I sat, and I played

to the saga of a plastic collapsible circus, playing

to eyes in front and those behind, playing

to the dim din in this hall of a skull.

But all I could get was

some funny tinny washboard rhythm:

rickety tickety tick— with first a Gutenberg bell,

then a micro bleep

at the end of every song.