Theatre of Bad Dreams - Stephen A. Roberts

We played to empty houses when we started out
Now it’s just the same because no one is about
No more cues for the actors to enter
Just exit stage left, right and centre
The show now must not go on 
In crippled and Covidious Albion
Do everything the government asks
Bring on the mummers in costume masks
Do not cough and do not drink
This thing is more dangerous than you think
Keeping out the diseased hordes
Means that players can’t tread the boards
No more showings of Macbeth
In case the audience catches their death
The future now is so uncertain
The theatre faces the final curtain
And as the lights go down on Piccadilly
I rehearse my final soliloquy

Stephen A. Roberts

His Career In The Circus - Richard Fleming

He started as The Human Fly:
it was a buzz but he got bored.
He gave sword-swallowing a try
but couldn’t stand the taste of sword.
The high-wire beckoned. With a shout,
he climbed up there in spangled tights
then hurried down: he had found out
he didn’t have a head for heights.
Billed as The Mighty Cannon-Ball,
it seemed this role was without flaws
but one misfire caused him to fall
into a hungry lion’s jaws.
Inside the fearsome beast’s abdomen,
he took his bow: consummate showman.

Richard Fleming