Poems from Sideshow by David Oyston

David Oyston, Poems from the Sideshow, Hardback 138 pp.

“Fougasse from The Horrors dies.
Sorrow. In the slackness that comes
from the body’s death of tension lies
strangeness, stranger-ness: gums
sharpen teeth, eyes sink, skin
shrinks from nail beds. What remains
is gravity’s absolute dominion,
deeper even than flesh. His name’s
Henry. Fougasse is a form of bread
he did not resemble. Erik strains
to curve the wood, for the dead
leave for the forest in coffins
the shape a person lived in. Truth
comes. Their names are not their names, kid.
Long Girl. Nib. Miss Nelly. The names smooth
over their faces silent as a casket lid.”

Poems from the Sideshow is David Oyston’s memoir of his early life in Riemann’s peninsular travelling show, by turns shocking, experimental and moving. An anomaly in the Broodcomb Press list, The Sideshow opens up an ill-lit door to one of the shadowier realities of life on the peninsula—