Another Circus Life
a poem made actual in National Poetry Month
Happy Poetry Month! I’ve actually been writing a poem a day, for NaPoWriMo. A friend instigated this venture and I’m glad of it. We write poems each day and send them to each other. Just for the hell of it, just to create work. Or fun… I have generally not been real “workman-like” about my poems, generally preferring the hand of creation to alight on my head and order me to speak! And yes, I’ve written a lot of poems with this idea. However, I’ve also come to believe that being more workman-like, at least to a point, can be helpful. After all, I’ve often found that “inspiration” is nearly always there, and can be tapped into if a person just sits and… types.
My NaPoWriMo poems in the past haven’t always seemed like much to me at first working. But I’ve pulled them out of mothballs and looked at them later, and found many of them to be decent— once I’ve worked them over some. I do edit my work over time, even if the edits are changing the spacing or removing a word or adding a word. Making a general reference more specific… honing in on what I was actually “seeing” or hearing as I wrote.
I’m mainly pleased with the work coming out this month. Maybe it was just time… I know some will need tightening and not all will make the cut, but it is interesting to keep at it — even when I am not “in the mood.”
So here… a poem from my efforts, for you to consider…. and hear and read.
Another Circus Life I am singing at the entrance to the circus tent— a high-pitched squeal interrupts my reverie a blue woman dressed in ragged feathers with a yellow striped cone hat is watching as the movement of pincers begins an avalanche the milk sea starts to disperse and the lions are roaring outside the churches A voice I hear is strained by memories of sacrificial altars I try to escape but I am called to witness again Again and again in the star-slaughter auditorium where I was once young a rotating symbol that I cannot decipher mounted on a long pole ( there is no wind and the air is chilled ) when I return from here, if I do— I will understand for once the cacophony the livid will of all these interruptions and eruptions and begin a circus life free of distraction I will hose the centaur’s hooves and legs to loosen their supple movements and consider again my own singular life rotating without blame or guilt on a plane fast outside nature— Max Wolf Valerio, April 10, 2026 NaPoWriMo 2026
Yes, write a poem for National Poetry Month or read one or give a poet a break! Subscribe!
Thanks again and I’ll post more of these new poems soon!
“Becoming”
The door did not slam
when he left—
it sighed.
As if the house itself
had grown tired
of holding its breath
through all those years
of careful footsteps,
of words folded smaller and smaller
until even silence felt too loud.
He did not leave all at once.
He left in fragments—
a truth here,
a boundary there,
a quiet refusal
that trembled in his throat
like a bird unsure of sky.
And still, I stayed
long enough
to witness the unraveling—
not of love,
but of something that wore its shape
like a mask that slipped
only when no one was looking.
Addiction is a strange fire.
It does not burn only the one
who feeds it—
it warms you just enough
to mistake it for light,
until you realize
you have been living
inside the smoke.
There are things I carry still.
Of course I do.
Not him—
not really—
but the echoes:
the second-guessing,
the careful scanning of faces,
the instinct to make myself smaller
so the room feels safer.
And yet—
there is something else now.
A small, insistent spark.
Not loud.
Not certain.
But mine.
It shows up
in mornings
that belong only to me —
hair unwashed, unhurried,
sunlight touching my face
without asking permission.
It shows up
when I choose myself
in ways that almost feel
like disobedience.
It shows up
in the quiet knowledge
that survival was not my final form.
His story ended
in a way I could not rewrite.
There is a grief
with no clean edges.
But mine —
mine is still unfolding.
I am not starting over.
I are starting from —
from every lesson
I never asked to learn,
from every moment
I stayed when leaving
felt impossible,
from the strength
I only recognize now
because I no longer need it
to endure.
There are days
when the past feels closer
than the future.
On those days,
I remember:
I have already done
the hardest thing.
I walked out
of a life
that asked me
to disappear.
And now—
slowly, stubbornly,
beautifully—
I am becoming again.