When it opens every afternoon
It plays a moaning, creaking tune,
A slowly dying rooster's croon,
And people flock to ride it like buffoons.
The ride that every child will dread,
It's all a dreary black and red,
The painted horses have no head,
And all the other creatures stuffed and dead.
It goes around, but not-so-merry.
Hold on tight,
This ride gets hairy.
Breakneck speed is more than scary,
Throws you off the side if you're not wary.
Don't know why the people ride it,
With years of maintenance denied it,
Hoards of spiders crawl inside it,
And all the shrieks of fear
from those who tried it.
They wait and wait in line for hours
Just to face the grisly horrors,
But often I have heard report -
The line that LEAVES the ride
is rather short.
-B.C. Byron
I think this ride would actually be pretty popular. People often go to great lengths to get genuinely frightened or risk bodily harm and they pay good money for the privilege. Forget rock climbing, sky diving, shark fishing, and Nascar. There’s something extra fun about a rickety old ride that threatens to fall apart with each rotation. Roller coasters are scary too, sure, but it’s much more thrilling when you know it could collapse from poor maintenance or you might get gangrene from rusty metal protrusions. In fact, a whole theme park full of broken rides with insect infestations could be the next big thing. I could call it Derelict Park. It would be cheap to operate since the rides would either be salvaged from abandoned carnivals or home-crafted with junkyard parts. The playground area would be a real junkyard filled with farm equipment, car parts, refrigerators, and industrial machines. What a great way to recycle. Liability waivers are a must, of course. Wouldn’t want to wreck everyone’s fun with an injury lawsuit.
I had to rush to finish the drawing for Scary-go-round so I could post it in time for Halloween. This poem was written some time ago, but I was a bit daunted by the illustration work and kept putting it off. For me, being new to art in the past 2 years, this was a step up. I’m glad it’s finished, so now I can come back to it in a year, recognize all its glaring flaws, then completely redraw it. I’ve come to realize this is one of the most important steps in both writing and drawing – revisions. I’ve revised some works 5 or 6 times and felt better with each new version. But how can I know when there are enough spiders and disembodied limbs in my pictures? I’m not sure. It seems art is never really done, just paused while we work on something else.
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