crystal radio House of Words wooden menu frame 3 boys flying














Disciples of Mad Magazine

(in loving memory of A. E. Neuman 1)


When me and my brother
were disciplies of

Mad Magazine,

the world was filled with
things we could laugh at:

Glue-on nails.  Elvis.
Sisters in love.  Yodelling.

Our 60's flat tops gave us infinite
planes of cool atop our heads:
aircraft carriers cruising
down main street.

We'd spin our heads and tear
off swaths of the horizon.

We'd run and tilt,
and soar over everyone.
We were little punk bastards.

When Dad was away,
Grampa would come by
to tighten things down.
Or oil them.

Once he came to cut the Burdock.
Gotta keep cutting it back, boys.
On our way to the tool shed,
we ran ahead, and

locked the hammer in the vice's jaws,
crammed chicken bones into its claw,
then ballanced the anvil on all of that.

Not grasping our art,
grandpa gruffed,
Boys, Boys, what is this NONsense?

We fell to the cement floor,
laughing into our sleeves.

He grabbed the old scythe.
Follow me.

So we followed the reaper
to the weed bed in back,
tacking behind him.
(There was quite a headwind.)

We watched him swish that thing for
half an hour. Finally he goes, Water, please.

Tittering severely, we brought him
a nice jug of luke warm water.

We waited, as he guzzled without end,
his eyes screwing wildly in circles,
hunting for coolness that never came.

Then he put down the empty jug,
and winked at us.

The amonia-and-molasses smell of cut
Burdock gripped the air like a bull dog.

There being nothing further to laugh at,
we decided to tack back to the tool shed,
as Grampa returned to his grim business.

1. Mad Magazine


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