Josh Ekroy

Behind The Amusement Park

This is the moment, you think, when the joke
dies; here’s the adventure that fell on its face;
this is the elation that questions itself;
you taste candy-floss as it dissolves 
on your tongue, hear echoes of those
shrieks that loved the torture of fright.

No wonder you pause to take in this roadside 
dump, its roller-coasters mere cogs and metal 
and flecks of paint, prancing horses, bumper-cars 
swivelled in spoilt career, rotting pyramids
of whiskered coconuts. You survey the stuffed
bins as if they were eloquent sculptures.

And that toy tank, a bugle in place of its gun,
enjoys the triumph of bindweed’s pink blooms.
Asbestos chunks, hurled out concessions
to an official voice, warped splintering planks,
air-bricks, off-cuts bagged up in polythene,
a cement-mixer rammed into a conifer hedge

all tell you how real fun turns out
to be an anagram of funeral. In that stillness,
you remember the serious-faced guest who’s left 
the party, seated among the empties in the garden
smoking, alone. You want to thank him
for being the sour in the sweetness.

Josh Ekoy's collection, Ways To Build A Roadblock is published by Nine Arches Press. His work has appeared in Best of British Poetry (Salt) and The Forward Anthology. Poems have appeared in magazines and have won numerous competitions, the latest being first prize in Guernsey Poems On The Move.