A Mask

A clown face smeared in sickly yellow
Leans and grins in a windy corner
Lit by the search-light beam of a lamp
That crackles at each bluebottle's death.
The painted mask is crusted, daubed in
Lines that crease when it laughs —
A cackle no human mouth could make —
And scored with age and malevolence,
The scars of its starved spirit contort
In fits of sick clownish ecstasy.