“Well, Toto, maybe we’re
even further from Kansas
than we thought!

There, the Carni came to town,
hucksters awaited the suckers
wandering the midway,
the lights blinking,
the Ferris Wheel whirling.
The rubes put down their dimes
on the numbers at the crooked wheel
and the nickel-a-piece, palm sized
sand bags were just a bit bigger
than the holes in the big board.
so only once in a great while
one would slip through so
Billy could give Sally,
his button nose, strawberry cheeks
corn-silk hair, best girl,
one of the Teddy Bears or Raggedy Ann dolls
that had been hanging on the wall for three seasons
and pouting Polly would push
Jimmy to squander his hard earned
hay-bale-tossing salary just enough
for cotton candy and a quick, sticky smooch
behind the big tent.

While here,

instead of the circus packing its tents
and its two scrawny elephants,
and rolling to the next town,
the next gullible stop on the road,

the people drive to the malls,
park their cars and run into the
former “something wicked this way comes”
traveling dens of iniquity
that Reverend Jones railed against
back in Kansas,
now standing permanent,
“Dave and Busters”,
arcades in all the malls,
in all their wild, blinking lights wonder,
waiting for them.
The hucksters and flimflam artists
have found a place in the
suckers home town!

Kansas feels a long way away”