A Mind's Eye

The Ballad of Auguste Ciparis

In 1870, the great showman Phineas T. Barnum introduced the traveling circus known as The Greatest Show on Earth. It continued its journeys well after his death in 1891. A hallmark of his circus was the sideshow; a collection of freaks and oddities exhibited for the entertainment of the masses. Among the strongmen, wolf-boys, and bearded ladies was a simple stone cell occupied by an illiterate, scarred black man who barely spoke English. His name was Auguste Ciparis. He was billed as The Sole Survivor of the Martinique Tragedy and described in the papers of the day as "haunted" and "a living ghost".

The Ballad of Auguste Ciparis

He sits beyond the gas-lights
in his cell of plastered stone
as P.T. Barnum's barkers shout
and speak about his home.
That home which is so far away,
no longer his to see,
that day that seems so distant now,
when Hell was there set free.

In a bed within his cell he lies,
watching life pass by,
through eyes now glazed
as his mind goes back
to the day he should have died.
The sun shone bright
and the breeze blew warm
on that emerald in the blue,
that tropic island, Martinique,
in nineteen-zero-two.

A stevedore by trade was he,
just over twenty-five,
when temper caused a fight to start
which only he survived.
Auguste was sentenced, set to hang,
from a rope in St. Pierre,
on Pelée's stunning sea-side slope
within that French town fair.

In that town of thirty thousand,
in a barred room made of stone,
Auguste was jailed and settled in
to the last place he'd call home.
Auguste sat sadly on his bed,
reflecting on his life,
knowing he would soon be dead
without a child or wife.
He stared between his prison bars
across a cobbled square
toward a convent and an opera house
which had been built right there.

Then suddenly from clear blue skies
a warm snow drifted down
that covered first the road and church
and soon the total town.
A smell of brimstone filled the air
and rain began to fall.
The hot gray snow grew sticky,
sucking at the shoes of all.

Nearby, an ancient crater
filled with water in the night.
Like magic it began to boil,
outside of all men's sight.
Against its earthen walls,
the churning maelstrom creaked,
until, at last the mud burst through
and flooded down the peak.
A hundred workers far below
could barely loose a cry,
before the seething sea of mud
ensured they all would die,
but Auguste in his lonely cell
knew nothing of their doom,
as silently he prayed to God
within that silent room.

The next few days the sulfur smell
grew stronger in the air,
while all the people lived their lives
as though they didn't care
and poor Auguste watched nuns walk by
with children on the square.

Ascension Day was May the eighth
and early church-bells rang
To celebrate Christ's rise to grace
as rapturous choirs sang.
Auguste, just wakened from his sleep
smiled at the joyous sound,
not noticing the other noise
or shaking of the ground.

At ten to eight, Mount Pelée roared
and burst its massive crown
and skyward like the savior Christ
the tons of earth were bound.
Exploding then a second time,
the heat of Hell released
was shot down toward that tragic town
to mark their holy feast.

A cloud of fire drowned St. Pierre
and scorched the city clean,
from harbor-side to furthest street,
in searing heat, they screamed.
No woman, child, or man was spared,
no body left unburned,
and God, the Son, his journey done,
did not that day return.
The bells which tolled the song of Christ
No longer swung or knelled,
instead upon the ground they lay,
now blackened, fused, and felled.

Auguste sat up, his eyes went wide
amidst the shrieks of death,
then suddenly into his cell
came Satan's boiling breath.
His body's back endured the blast
and smoke rose off his skin.
He thought that this was punishment
for all his earthly sin.
The demon's work was not yet done,
but doom passed Auguste by,
unlike those souls outside his cell,
he was not picked to die.

The burnt man through his window peers
and sadly does he gaze
as dying nuns dash past his cell,
their habits now ablaze.
Across the street, a rubble heap
that glowed like melted tin,
spit forth dark fumes through shattered rooms
where once the opera had been.

The tears came to his tortured eyes
and loudly then he wept
until despair made him collapse
and fitfully, he slept.
For three days in his cell he lay
convinced he'd not survive,
till at his door, live souls he saw,
and cried, "Behold, I am alive!"

The blaring barker's megaphone
snaps Auguste back to now,
the tent, the stage, the sawdust floor,
the hungry leering crowd.
He blinks his eyes to clear his head,
the light shines off his scars,
within the cell he knows so well,
behind those rusted bars.

A hopeless look comes to his eyes,
a look of bitter shame,
for standing still while living on
in guilty fleeting fame.
The ghosts of nuns and children
as they sing and dance and pray,
invade his sleep, however deep
and haunt his waking day.

He spends each one reminded,
in the spotlight's cruel hot glare,
of all the horror he endured,
back then and over there.
Each misery remembered,
each terror and regret,
and what he wants with all his heart
is simply to forget.