Eddie Wiser
In a small town somebody is always gonna play the Fool
Those things start young before you have a chance
To be anything but what they tell ya, your gonna be.
You slurped up a spaghetti noodle wrong at the dinner table
and one long one comes out your nose, and the family laughed
Laughed like they never did at anything you ever did.
It felt good. I felt noticed in a new way. That’s how it started.
Maybe I was naturally funny, naturally full of play
It all came natural to be this average guy who makes
The world laugh wearing the clown hat with ownership.
Feeling that piece of noodle hanging limp out of my nose.
My limp dick waiting for laughs to give it rise when all else
Fails in my desire to be seen past my label, pass my surface.
Finding my way through being six years old for attention.
Dangling any kind of noodle I could, reaching for the carrot
Just out over there.
Not as smart as Jeff Snow, certainly not as good looking
as Aaron Whittles that the girls drooled and flirted all over
In those high school days of finding where you fit in or not.
Playing the Fool, being the clown goes a long way when
You’re smart about it and have good timing, It’s all in the timing.
It was time to shift out of it, feel the grown up moving passed
The Fool’s cleverness. Pull that damn noodle out of my nose
for the last time, and just let the funny roll naturally
With out all the need behind it, without all the insecurity.
I wasn’t sure I could do it. Small towns hold their Fool tight,
whisper all over town their shenanigans. Give a strange
reverence and salute to you when you pass, like they think
they know who you really are. And what clownish thing
are you gonna do next and will they be the target.
I fooled them all leaving town, leaving MIchigan,
going to the Academy of Arts and Drama in Chicago,
writing plays, and stories of small town America.
Telling their stories, making it all matter beyond
The labeling and curse of being more than what that label
Ever had to say of a fool jumping into life in free fall
With trust in his heart in the surrender to deeper meaning.
Marrying the prettiest girl in the world. Laughing and joking
My successes. Living the dream with a fools smile.
Never eating spaghetti again.
