POETRY BY TIMOTHY WILKIE

Timothy Wilkie is a legend in the Hudson Valley. His stories, art, poetry and music are what makes him legendary. He is an active member of ASK (Art Society of Kingston) and has worked with Pete Seeger and written for The Open Door Radio Show on Armed Forces radio, heard around the world. 

CANNIBAL CLOWNS

A span of wind and water,
Timber pulp and sacks of clay.
The ghost of those that had died working the boardwalk,
Still haunting the old deserted midway.

The night, a moon or gasping candle,
Shed precious little light,
As a melancholy fog hugged the coastline.
And stole away the light.

I was going with it.
Going, going, gone.
It lived in me like malignant cancer.
Making it impossible to move on.

I had returned to the place of my making.
Sing me a song and tell me a rhyme.
With a painted face and a beaming smile.
And a quirky little line.

From Coney Island all the way to Brighton Beach,
It looked deserted,
As the cold November wind blew off the bay.
Coney Island was a state of mind a why, not a way.

Why had I come when the winter winds blew, 
When the white laced foam slapped up on the sand and the surf devoured the shore?
The wind reddened my cheeks like a slap in the face
As people peeked out their windows and locked their doors.

Darkness ruled the light of day,
As death silently tiptoed down the midway,
The seagulls screamed on the ocean's breath.
As they dove into almost certain death.

A smear of blood under my nose,
Mermaid Avenue to Stillwell,
Life was cheap,
As the junkies and prostitutes know in this living hell. 

But there was more.

They were just the prey.
Because the predators lurked,
In the darkened doors,
And inky black stairways.

We walked all the way up to Surf Avenue.
They were there I knew,
I could feel them inside:
Their icy breath and cold, black eyes.

We walked past the amusement park and aquarium.
All attempts to revive the waterfront.
But the ancients were there.
And they were on the hunt.

I was dying,
At least I hoped I was.
I had begged them to kill me,
But they couldn’t or wouldn’t because…

In my deep and darkest hour,
I had gone to them to devour,
But they rejected me,
And threw me out on wounded knees.

Like looking inside a dark window,
The chapel stood,
I could only see evil,
I had been cast from the good.

Slowly hell appeared before my eyes.
I could no longer enter a holy place.
I was without penance,
I was without grace.

Suffocating in the sins of the flesh.
I could smell her body heat,
And taste her blood
And see her breath.

It was a silent sea of endless time that rolled in.
Lost in a land of confusion,
My soul cried out for relief,
But it was just an illusion.

This was a reality I could no longer bear.
Each aching moment seemed like forever.
I no longer lived,
I just fed off the dead.

Like the death of John Wayne Gacy,
The truth must be told
About the Oxygen Leeches,
That still exist from days of old.