The Girl in the Automatic Clown Jacket

The giant baby wears a necklace and has freckles.
His temples are large and milky-white,
Like satellite dishes in the moonlight.
Tether the softest goat on the outskirts at noontime,
Don’t look back,
Even when you hear the crackling of limbs,
First in the tree line and then
In that well tended clearing
Where the stakes have been driven into the ground.

Don’t turn around when you hear
The sound of untrained masticating.
It’s ok for the giant baby to smack his lips.

Bring forth the dancing girls and virgins!
Make sure that they are all pretending to be happy.
The giant baby must not be displeased.
Make sure that their sad eyes shine in the moonlight,
And the bells on their pretty ankles jingle,
So that they may be located and retrieved
By men with pitchforks,
Whose faces shine in the firelight,
When they run away, into the forest.

There isn’t a single person in the village who is not terrified of the giant baby!
He must not be displeased,
Or he will crawl to the village gates
And reach into houses
Through front doors and windows.
The baby is masticating!
Hush!
Elasticating!
Stretching the bounds
Of reality to nearly snapping point.
It’s rude to stare.
Don’t ever point.

Anoint the baby with a blessed urn.
Fill the pig swill troughs with
Mother’s milk and step back!
There will be slurping noises!
Who will rub his back to make the burping noises?
One hundred buffalo,
Each eighty centimeters tall,
Ready on plastic hoofs,
With bated buffalo breath
In time for nap time.
This is not the time to tie the virgins to the stakes.
Who employed that wretched hunchback?
This is not the middle ages.
This is nap time.

You will not roll over and
Crush the giant baby while you snooze.
This baby will knock the wind out of you.
He will smash your chimney pots.
Good luck settling in this village.
People will think you are crazy,
Moving here with your seven busty teenage daughters.
They will smile in your face
But behind your back they will talk
About the well tended tethering patch
And snicker.

Baby don’t like it when mum and dad argue.
He will squeeze you
Until your hair follicles produce much thicker locks.
Use one hundred ewes to fashion socks!
Patch many mohair sweaters to make a baby grow.
When this baby grows up you better build another village,
Much further away.
Submit the planning applications today
And await approval in the form of
Stamps.
I heard there’s another valley over that way,
They had a giant otter there but he moved away.
Something about a giant beaver dam bust-up.

The giant baby will not be televised!
The giant baby will not be throw away,
Or fobbed off with no bath water.
You, the idiot with the teenage daughters,
Don’t move here.
It is not a very good idea.

Hush! Shuddup!
Nap time is over.
It’s time for bath time
And then the rolling in the patch of clover
Which acts as a towel:
Super absorbency.

For the rest of the story wait and see,
It hasn’t happened yet,
Please replace the hand set and back away.
Keep your elbows tucked in and your wits about you.
When you are far enough away you may run.
I permit you.
If you are dumb enough to return one day
You may see the smoking stumps of wood
Rising form the packed mud streets.

Go in peace.
The giant baby must not be underestimated.
Go in peace.