...That’s Entertainment...

Ogg the Flatulent 

sets his bushy beard aflame 

and those of us enthralled Neanderthal 

gathered about the blazing cave fire 

express our most ardent appreciation 

by bouncing applause stones off 

our bruised and blemished foreheads. 

Please note that as soon as we troglodytes 

came to grasp the significant condition 

known of as     concussion, 

we abruptly came to discard 

said customary stones 

and the concept of applause 

was redefined as the spastic act 

of two hands clashed together. 

Though the burning beard parlor trick 

proved very popular, it in truth 

failed to last until the eerie advent 

of rooms called “parlors”. 

The hilarity of scar tissue aside, 

around one millennium later, 

our desire for amusement evolved 

from singed facial follicles 

to the inevitable presence 

of them who we’d call mimes.  

Indeed, as our homo sapient 

intellect came to evolve, 

self-inflicted pain to entertain waned 

and we’d soon require grown men 

acting as if they’re robots 

to put us all a titter o’ 

transistorized titillation. 

Willing suspension of disbelief, 

said mime would have us except 

the motion notion of he 

as a mechanized man. 

Oh, and doing so, 

we in mass are somehow entertained. 

So much so that upon 

the wanton climax of his act, 

we will pull coin from purse 

and place it in his waiting hat. 

He… 

He is a street busker and his 

current area o’ raucous 

resides within London’s Covent Garden. 

Oh, and for every busker, a punter, 

and this one particular busk 

has amassed a resounding thousand. 

He has this shtick; 

would have us believe he’s 

some sort of unfeeling automaton. 

This no more than an act 

(though his wife doth beg to differ). 

To be an animated automaton… 

That.     That.     That! 

That would be his sizzle shtick! 

He of unhappy apparatus status, 

absent bliss o’ beatitude, 

would bring smiles unto the masses 

whilst void thereon his own. 

He would not, could not smile. 

Could not permit the experience 

   of joy unto himself, 

but would do his utmost 

   to bring it to another.

And so… 

And so, synergic motor 

emotive interloper that he is, 

he passes into the crowd, 

selects a random woman, 

and brings her to the fore. 

And though shy

she swiftly submits 

to synergic scintillation. 

Showtime’s sure allure as it were, 

and servos whir, 

   and rotors stir, 

      and robots putter and purr. 

Our mechanized mime 

moves his demur maiden to 

the middle of the mall where she 

turns to face a sea of smiles. 

Men, women, and children 

expectant to be entertained. 

Lo but what can she do?

What talent doth she possess 

which will mesmerize the masses? 

And here she looks out to note 

that every third or fourth smile 

has a camera plastered above it. 

A quarter thousand lenses 

capturing film and video, 

placing her pending performance 

full-frontal their holiday memories. 

The mime has her strike a fashion pose 

and the circled spectators chime 

with a scattering of churlish chuckles. 

This her first time on stage 

and so soon a boon critique. 

Surely… 

Surely, she possessed some 

other significant attribute 

which might arouse the myopic masses. 

And here the enigmatic mime 

motions for our immaculate maiden 

to raise her arms above her head. 

Having done so, he 

catatonic robotics to her rear, 

reaches down, grabs the hem of 

her thick woolen sweater 

and slowly begins to pull it up. 

This mime held hard assumptions. 

That in absence of a divine god, 

man is surely incapable of morality. 

That the life of any one man, 

no matter how despicable, 

holds more inherent value 

than that of a dog. 

That his penis

was larger than average. 

 That he was currently pulling up 

a heavy-knit sweater and not 

the clinging blouse beneath. 

And here this particular sweater and blouse 

come to pass her armpit level and 

proceeds to cover the maiden’s face 

when those thousand amassed spectators 

begin to cheer as one.

Indeed at this precise moment, 

he as a street-busking mime 

is garnering the greatest applause 

and aroused audience boffola

that his slick robotic shtick 

will ever have achieved. 

And all he has done is 

pull a cumbersome sweater 

up over a woman’s face. 

What? What? 

What could possibly make 

this one particular stunt so special? 

He looks out into the gathered crowd 

to see the most animated 

of hysterical spectators to be 

an assortment of small boys. 

Boys whose mothers are 

frantically attempting to 

turn tantalized faces askew. 

And our mechanized mime 

of deadpan dour 

brings his face down and around 

to behold a perky pair 

of naked breasts. 

Whoa but such a site to behold 

that the mime does a 

sparky spit-take 

and turns his flushed face 

back and about 

to the roar of the 

rollicking crowd. 

And there… 

There to my utter wonder, 

I come to discern 

that rote-rigid robots 

can actually manage to smile. 

Ó2019 Jack David Hubbell