The Man Who Had Bird Knees
I once knew a man…
Who had knees…
That bent backwards, like a bird’s…
And this man…
Could only walk…
Like a limping, lame old duck.
The children all laughed…
And pointed at him…
When he passed them in the park…
And it made him smile…
And laugh to himself…
That his handicap made them happy.
Every single night…
He oiled his weary knees…
And tried to fight the pain…
And every single day…
He used his silly legs…
To do the Chicken Dance for kids.
And then there came a day…
When the bird legs came no more…
To be noticed by kids at the park…
And the parents all learned…
That the poor man had died…
And the whole world brought him flowers.
The next day in Heaven…
St. Peter saw a man…
Whose knees bent backwards like a bird’s…
And all of Heaven laughed…
As he did the Chicken Dance…
While angels clapped in Heaven.
The thing I find to be most witlessly true about both poetry and life is that things can be funny, and make you laugh, and at the same time make you cry on the inside. Humor is hard to write because it can be both happy and sad at the same exact moment. How do you define that quality? The bitter-sweet nature of nature? That’s saying it in a way that is both contradictory and odd. It can give you a wry smile at the same moment it both confounds and confuses you. So better just to shrug your shoulders and tell yourself you know it when you see it… and this either is or isn’t it. Sorry if I made you think too hard, cause I know that sometimes thinking hurts.
Mickey at the Wishing Well of Souls
I found a country well, and I thought I had a quarter,
But I fished in pockets hard, and found nothing for the warter,
And since I had to warp a line to make the poem rhyme,
I figured I would just look in, because I had the time.
I looked into the warty water which sat there still and deep,
And could not see the bottom, and I began to weep.
The water was clear and dark and black,
And the only thing I saw… was Mickey looking back.
And nothing of the wishing well, its magic could I see,
For only there just staring back, the secret thing was me.
I apologize for inflicting poetry on you when you probably came here looking for goofy stuff to laugh at. But my poetry is just like all my word-mangling and picture-crayoning. It tends to be goofy and weird and walking a tightrope over a shark tank between chuckle-inducing and tear-jerking. You probably can’t even tell which is the poetry and which are the burbled brain-farts of commentary that pad this thing out to five hundred words. Four hundred and ninety six, actually.
Catch a Falling Star 