An Elegy for Terry the Clown

It was my birthday party

Terry the clown was there

A middle aged man with a bald head

And robust views, and a squirting flower.

He was a hero of the town, was Terry

How many other working clowns

Smoked Camels, drank Carslberg

And drove a turbocharged pink Mini

With a squeaky horn?

Children always loved Terry

He was the type of man

That you wanted to be your Uncle

And got told to call Uncle

By legitimate but tired relatives

Who couldn’t handle the stress

Of twenty screaming children.

On the mid nineties birthday circuit

It was either Terry, quasar or bowling

And Terry was the King

I was waiting by the door that day

And he didn’t disappoint

Wearing a daring fuchsia suit

His red clown nose gleaming

Terry took us through his repertoire

Magic tricks, slapstick, the flower

Then a few nod and wink jokes

That got the Dad’s laughing

And the Mum’s shaking their heads

At the antics of this rogue

Change is an elusive process

One day Terry was in his element

The next his tricks seemed dated

His jokes had become off colour

And coulrophobia was a thing.

I saw him once, around that time

He was standing in the Co-op

In his standard civilian clothes

Cracking quips in the checkout line

As if to see if he still had it

What did Terry believe in?

It’s hard to answer with any certainty

When he was always taking the piss

He worshipped the deity of the joke

But unlike other commentators

Laughed with and not at the object

And most of all at and with himself.

Like all clowns, he seemed to know

That self-ridicule was required

To burst the balloon of anger

On the day of my eighth birthday

Terry was still in his prime

Expertly failing to notice

As I crept up with the foam pie

I hope that memories like this

Kept him going, at the bitter end

When he sat in front of the telly

Drinking and smoking and spluttering

Grumbling about the country

Lamenting the absence of laughter