Bully For You
Loosely based on the movie Arsenic and Old Lace.
I’m sure you’ll excuse the rambling for that is what
the movie was like — an adrenal rush of dark and crazy!
Teddy Roosevelt: “Bully for you.”
BULLY FOR POISON
no pantywaist.
puts his big boy pants on.
deals with his bully
brother and his odd sidekick.
his uncle bugles at tiptop,
races downstairs,
keeps going
to the gullet —
the belly of the whale.
a grave situation.
tools laid out...
twisted...
menacing..
are his aunts a menace too?
but so sweet to his fiance
while they (let me say
this with the voice of Margaret Hamilton)
“Poison...poison…”
oh don’t worry!
they are only helping
lonely old men.
elderberry wine
sounds delicious
and zany.
Mortimer gets ever more
drunk
on crazy
as he finds bodies in window seats
and buried “in the locks,” below.
in the end he,
like his Uncle
(Teddy Roosevelt) blows
his bugle,
races downstairs,
figuring he must be
cuckoo, for he’s related
to the bunch of nuts.
honeymooners pack up the whole bunch
in paddy wagons, straight jackets,
whatever it takes.
he finds out he can’t relate,
he’s adopted.
wipes off his forehead,
kisses his aunts,
rides off into the sunset.
his kids will never visit.
he warns them of drinking,
especially when they are lonely old men.
teaches his daughters not to mix drinks.
he hopes of his adopted family, he’s seen the last.
he will keep tabs.
3/11/2021
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