Best Musicals Poems
Have you ever been in a musical show?
I have done some, so this is how I know.
They first hooked me when I was in high school,
but stage fright made me feel the fool.
So, I began on the backstage crew,
Oh the things we had to do.
Painting sets and handling props,
sometimes I wished I was a farmer harvesting crops.
Dressing all in black the day of the show
moving sets in the dark so no one would know.
We did some things that only a crew can do
I'll try to list a few here for you.
For example, during the "King and I",
There is a tearful scene with a Buddha to cry.
Since our Buddha was a person who spoke to Tuptim,
We did all in our power to get a laugh out of him.
Two of us moved his pedestal onstage,
his scene was to be all the rage.
We had to hide below his pedestal for his soliloquy,
So we tried to crack him up for all to see.
I worked behind the scenes again, for "My Fair Lady",
Some of the things we did there were also shady.
Professor Higgins takes a big drink in one scene
so we decided to pull one of our pranks on him.
The bottle he poured from was usually filled with ginger ale,
when we switched it to the real stuff he turned pale.
He could barely speak the next few lines
and was off key in his song the next time.
The classic we pulled was in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown",
our prank was the talk of the town.
If you don't know the story let me enlighten you
because then you may get a laugh or two.
Molly is aboard the Titanic's first trip
and the scene has to deal with the sinking of the ship.
We had a lifeboat with people on stage with waves across the floor,
she gets their attention by firing several shots in the air.
During the final dress rehearsal before show night
we knew this scene would be just right.
The Titanic sinking in the background, the waves, the lifeboat,
Molly pulls her pistol, raises it to the sky, and began to shoot.
The auditorium goes silent as the people raise their eyes to her to engage,
When a rubber duck came flying from the wings and landed on stage.
You never saw a director as mad as that
if she had a gun she would have blown off your hat.
"Who did that? Who did that?" was all she could say,
as the stage crew just laughed as we went on our way.
I finally got the nerve to perform in some shows later on,
But for now...this is just an introduction.
We have some friends with a son named Todd,
whose avocation was to an actor be.
Little did I know that his avocation
would sometime soon involve me.
I loved to sing around the house
and (if I say so myself) could carry a tune.
One day my wife told me that she
didn't know how really well I could croon.
Their son had gotten a lead role in a show,
my wife bragged about my singing.
When she mentioned that chorus voices were needed,
I should have heard the alarm bells ringing.
Have you ever been in a Musical Show?
In front of an audience I would never stir,
Yet, here I was agreeing
to join the chorus of "Oliver".
It was very hard work from the beginning,
rehearsals and stage blocking every night.
Then there were the costumes and make-up,
Now I know what it feels like to put on tights.
Oh, you should have seen me,
dancing and singing like never before.
Gallavanting with trepidation in every step,
learning to enjoy the audience's roar.
It was fun as I had never experienced,
being part of a cast to make others smile.
Wearing hose and funny clothes, pretending
that I was someone else for a little while.
I don't remember how many performances,
but I'll never forget that feeling at the end of the show.
When the audiences stood and applauded us,
as we bowed and then had to go.
There is no such feeling in the world,
than to be appreciated by others you see.
Performers, writers, comics, or poets
all give us something we need.
That is why they shower their applause on us,
when we perform to make their day.
I know, because I have experienced it
even in just my own little way.
It made me want to do it again,
to be an actor and not a stagehand hidden.
I'll tell you about my next performance,
in a show that I was so glad to have given.
I dreamed I accidentally bought two expensive tickets to a musical play about Thomas Jefferson, then figured, what the hell, Rhonda and I might as well go. Then an ex showed up, someone I get along with fine to this day, but I was surprised in the dream that she screamed horrible curses at me.
As I was walking over a drum bridge at a zoo, I realized I had to take care of the Jefferson tickets which I'd wadded up and put in my right-hand pocket, the one with the hole in it. Fortunately it hadn't fallen through the hole, so I took the two attached tickets and tried to unwad them and smooth them out on the bridge's railing, but the tickets preferred to stay wadded up.
As I was waking up, something smelled like it was cooking and I momentarily wondered if I'd left the stove on the night before when I made spring-burgers. But the radio was on and they said the reason the atmosphere stank of barbecue was towns around Puget Sound were being "smoked" by forest fires in British Columbia. So good, I hadn't left the stove top on, I could relax.
I'd been up most of the night and hadn't gone to bed until about 4:30, so I fell back to sleep and dreamed I was wandering the countryside with the ghost of Johnny Cash. He was so pleasant. I was so happy to be with him. I wasn't sure he was dead, because here we were together, I must've misremembered. It's not my usual sort of dream, a happy one that is.
I didn't wake up until ten. Went down stairs and discovered the oven was on! Rhonda had put a big slice of apple pie in there hours earlier, then went off to work forgetting about it. Surprisingly it wasn't burned. It was dehydrated and flattened into a crispy apple tart. So I ate it.
CONTENTS (…may have settled during shipping and handling.)
Preface by C. Günter Marrow
Prologue by Zoltan Goliath
Cycle I. FAITH HEALERS & HEARSAY MIRACLES
Ghosts from the Well
Hard Lessons
Chest of Drawers
Cycle II. RAW PERFUME
Social Insecurity
Rogues’ Gallery
Business as Usual
Cycle III. ORDINARY FAIRY TALES
Dry Stone Wall
A House with No Servants
Let’s Put this Night to Sleep
Cycle IV. FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Sausage, Head Cheese & Scrapple
The Institution
Should the Levee Ever Break
Cycle V. SCARS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
Light at the End of Tunnel Hill
Light Keeper’s Testament
Light in a Quiet Room
Epilogue by Otis Trench
I am a sucker for musicals
A vexation for I neither sing or dance well.
They are my favorite form of entertainment
Possibly because I also cannot
play the flute, piano, saxophone
or be a conductor or a choreographer
Musicals or uplifting and delightful tome
in spite of my obvious limitations