Category: MikeCrowl

Helpless laughter

TRAWLing through the death notices, I’m seized with a
SPASM, my legs won’t hold me, I’m feeling
SHAKY all over, and giggling begins to bubble up. Very
PICKY, normally, about what I read in the paper
OWING to the way disasters, violent offenders, murderers
LEVER me, for some unknown reason, into helpless
LAUGHter. It’s a psychic-physiological thing.
HOMER cracks me up, his Iliad seems a farce. Once-
EASELled savage paintings by Goya and Munch, or the thought of a still-
BIRTH, reduce me to whoops of hilarity, the tragic made comic. You’re
BIGOTed about me but I can’t help it. I hate it that bad news is in
AMPLE supply. Here, for example, unexpected, is my father’s obituary.

Adolescence

BLINK and you’ll miss the distinct sign of
HAIR growing, some might say barely inked, on the
HIPPO’s chin. The hippo, teenage, is on the brink of
LIMITing his minimal shaving and shrinking his parents’
LIVERs by making a stink, though not taking to drink.
QUARK! he croaks, like some missing link, a noise
ROWDY enough to make father hippo turn salmon pink:
‘STUFF and nonsense,’ father shouts, ‘you need a hippopotamus shrink!’

Hippo teenager shouting ‘Quark!’
Hippo father bemused by his son.
Both photos courtesy of Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE

Happy Hour

ENTRY is free if you can stand the manic
GIDDY crowd. If you want to drink you’ll need your hand
STAMPed. There you go. Watch your feet – try not to slip in the
VOMIT.

All about me

ARENA crowd is screaming, ‘Go for the try!’ As
BEFITs the self-centred inside centre, he says, Just a
JIFFY, I’m in control of this ball. I’ll kick it into
TOUCH.’ The crowd groans – a sustained, despondent sound.

A day at the office

CIVIL servants, en masse, in a rage,
ENTER the pothole-minded politician’s office,
IRATE at his effect on their combined
LIVERs, that feeling of bile swirling
ROUND. They settle, bitter, before the
TEPID MP, a lukewarm bath of a man,
TRULY a man who eclipses all the
USUAL machinations of the average legislator.                

Unforgotten

My
DEBUT performance before the crowd is something I have
HOARDed from the moment of its final curtain. Of course it’s
SILLY to willy-nilly class that moment above all others, to keep UPPERmost a moment the hordes have certainly forgotten.  

Evening meal

SALTY soup boils on our gas-fired stove, a hock of pork a
SLOOP on a broiling potato sea. The kitchen’s face is
STEAMing. My sweating mother sees me, stops me,
TRUSSes my arms to my side: “I know your taste buds’re itchin.’”

Home alone

HEAVY-handed Frederick in his wife’s
FRILLy apron loads the dishes in the
FALSE-fronted dishwasher, sets the
CYCLE as he wishes. The water swishes.