Dr. Horcas Quintessential Gypsy Merry-Go-Round

The summer season was almost gone

The circus had been and went,

We looked on sadly across the green

As they packed the final tent,

The trailers gone to follow the sun

And they left the meadow scarred,

With a hundred thousand footprints left

I could see from my own backyard.

 

The days grew cold and the nights drew down

It was dark by half past six,

There was nothing left to enchant us now

But a night at the local flicks,

Then barely a week had passed us by

When we woke to the sound of the drum,

A laughing, dancing troupe went by

And the dress was Romanian.

 

A couple of semis followed on

With a painted screen surround,

‘Doctor Horcas Quintessential

Gypsy Merry-Go-Round.’

They travelled on to the meadow

And they erected tents and things,

Then built a great contraption there

That looked like a box, with wings.

 

At one end there was an opening

Like a giant mouth, with teeth,

If you wanted to ride the Merry-Go-Round

You had to pass in beneath,

Then up on a winding stairway that

Would take you right to the top,

With a view of the countryside up there

That would make your eyeballs pop.

 

It wasn’t a simple fairground ride

For the cars were all enclosed,

And each in the shape of an Avatar

Like a Wolverine, a Toad,

And some were painted with leaping flames

And others, coated in ice,

Some appeared to be bound in chains

On one was a sacrifice.

 

A woman, laid on an altar stone

A scimitar raised on high,

And a great big hulking Blackamoor

Looked down with an evil eye,

While a man in an ancient topper raised

And tapped with his cane as well,

‘Roll up, roll up, for the Moon is up

And this ride is bound for hell!’

 

The people paid at a wicket gate

And they moved into the cars,

A couple laughed and got into one

That looked like the planet Mars,

But I was stayed at the wicket gate

When they said that the ride was full,

And watched it slowly spinning around

As I waited, sat on a stool.

 

I’d never seen rides as strange as this

The lids were all battened down,

You couldn’t see what went on inside

As they spun and flipped around,

They dipped down under the wooden deck

Then shot up into the skies,

And came down tumbling, strangely rumbling

Screams and shrieks and cries.

 

The band came up to the upper deck

And they played a Gypsy tune,

They danced themselves to a frenzy there

Beneath a harvest moon,

They drowned the sound of the riders out

The ride, it came to a stop,

But when they opened the battened lids

I was left with a sense of shock.

 

For steam poured out of the Wolverine,

And smoke poured out of the Goat,

The other riders came out all right

But seemed to be quite remote.

They came out shocked, lost in a trance

As they filed on down the stair,

And nobody spoke, but stared ahead

Each lost in his own nightmare.

 

I suddenly changed my mind at that

And fought my way down the stair,

I couldn’t manage to get my breath

‘Til I got to the open air,

I heard it wasn’t Romanian

As at first I’d thought it was,

It was more like Transylvanian

I said to my girlfriend, Ros.

 

It sold its rides for a single night

Then packed and was on its way,

Nobody saw which way it went

Or knows to the present day,

But twenty people had disappeared

As the meadow was churned to mud,

And I saw signs on the following day

That suspiciously looked like blood.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Onku Ghosh]

Quite enjoyed the rides like I used to as a child.Nowadays the kids are not interested in these rides( the simple fun elements in life)anymore.Even when people are enjoying themselves there is an element of pathos ''And I saw signs on the following day/That suspiciously looked like blood."Your narration reads like a very interesting story which can't be left midway.Excellent write by a great poet

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

I'm sitting here wondering what drugs you're on, thinking, they must be really hard to pronounce. LOL! Your mind wanders into the most amazing places. We are never bored with Mr. Paget's Quintessential Poe-esque What-Goes-Around-Comes-Around.

[TL Boehm]

Wonderfully chilling. I've always been fascinated with merry go rounds they are both beautiful and creepy and the mechanism lent itself amazingly well to a "horror" tale.

[TPK Stories]

Interesting story! :-)

[Tate Morgan]

Well you get what you pay for I suppose and sometimes it is the luck of the draw. Think Id ride it with a wooden stake in hand

[Marie]

A ride to h=Hell indeed...a fascinating story...

[quinfinn]

i think the most thrilling ride in life is life itself, but you have penned another masterpiece of depth and fantasy here. nicely done.

[Tomahawk Joe]

I like the imagery great poem

[Keith]

Mr. Paget you now have me wary of Merry-Go-Rounds. You freaked me with the Horse that shouldn't be ridden and now the people vanished of this one! Sensational read, as usual you had me hooked with the rythm of the first first verse, from there trapped into reading to the end. And those visual images of the travelling circus...

"The trailers gone to follow the sun
And they left the meadow scarred,
With a hundred thousand footprints left
I could see from my own backyard."

[Baby Ricochet]

Great story. The visual of the mad Ferris wheel of doom spinning round with a bunch of crazy gypsies dancing around it isn't something you read every day. It's not like there's a crazy dancing gypsy blog or something. Well there might be, I don't know, anyway. You really are an awesome writer Mr Paget.