Jack Yeats, \'The Barrel Man\'

Jack Yeats, \'The Barrel Man\'

Jack Yeats, \'The Barrel Man\'

How easy people must be to please
when even brickbats count as applause.

It takes a peace-loving man indeed
to brave such war and not lose his head.

Today’s Diogenes must learn
to ride the rapids in his urn

but no Niagara plunge compares
to testing the waters above my ears.

What’s a ducking to one fed on
the kind of weather I bang my head on?

I am the dung-heap where the fruit
you plant on me will lodge and sprout,

my rotten-tomatoed two black eyes
the sick-note for my clown’s disguise.

The windfalls in this antic zoo
mean not just fruit but the branches too:

I am your tuppenny Christ expected
to salvage his own cross from your deadwood.

If a baying crowd pelts with ardour
an appreciative one just pelts the harder.

Grant me, O Lord, a knockout blow
and over I’ll roll and off I’ll go.