(Flashback to Boyhood: Charlie Chaplin

-One of the greatest of cinema clowns-

Died in 1978)

Charlie when I saw you clown

At the cheapest flicks in town

On edge, in the cheapest seats

Cackling at your clownish feasts

Fearfully crunching acid drops

While you were chased by angry cops

Little – Charlie – did I know

The picture that you tried to show –

The little man that’s pushed about

Taking clout on painful clout

Revolving round revolving doors

And then escaping on all fours

Through splayed-out legs of wicked guys

Who couldn’t see beneath their eyes –

Those beefy blokes with heavy tread

Who always grimly look ahead

The ruling men who never know

The things that’s happening below.

Charlie when you bucketed water

Over the nasty station porter

Didn’t we cheer your little game !

We would have loved to do the same.

And when the cop with wicked grin

Crept behind to do you in

Remember, Charlie? We’d remind you

“Look out, mister, he’s behind you!”

Then as you waddled reel to reel

Through peanut shells and orange peel

Toffee papers, apple cores

Inches deep on all the floors

Jumping in the baker’s dough

Dripping paint from head to toe

Dragging your laundry through the slime –

You made the ridiculous sublime.

Continued…

For you were us and us was you

And what you did we wanted to –

Except that in our simple youth

We couldn’t know the deadly truth

That all the world’s most useful chaps

Are little men who take the raps.

Charlie now your act is done

Walk off into the setting sun

Along the narrowing forest floor

Past orange peel and apple core

Peanut shells and lolly sleeves

Toffee papers and autumn leaves.

Charlie you know I won’t cry

My crying days have long gone by

And if my voice is slightly hoarse

Charlie it is

Just because

I keep hollerin’

I have seen

A baddy fellow

On the screen

With wicked look and

Upraised cane

Rushin’ up to bash

Your brain… …

And as you fade out, we’ll remind you

Charlie, boy, we’re all behind you.

January 1978