If Chas Addams wrote verses…
Michael Showoff * Margaret MacAncheese * Tippy Chairfell * Phllp Willis * Violet Shrinkie * Angelo Salad * Marcy LeStickler * Gabby Nabors *
Michael Showoff
Mike the endless agitator
riding down the escalator
cried, “No hands, just look at me!”
Then zwerp. There was no Mike to see.
Where Michael Showoff stood before
the sinking stair sank through the floor
and dragged him ’round and ’round forevermore.
His mother to the store complained.
A sympathetic clerk explained
the steely steps have stubby teeth
to bite your shoes and pull beneath
where ankle-grabbing terrors lurk
with fangs a-gleam in inky murk,
with clinking fangs — their gnawful work!
Other children, well behaved,
hold fast the rail and so are saved.
The child who’s caught in Goblin’s vault
can’t say it’s someone else’s fault.
The boy himself must take the blame.
And though he brought her tears and shame,
his mother missed her Mikey all the same.
Margaret MacAncheese
Little Maggie MacAncheese
a TV tray upon her knees,
could feel a tickling in her feet.
She shucked her shoes and saw her suite
of toes arrayed upon the floor —
a tad more curly than before.
And what she found alarming too,
between her toes a yellow goo.
A most disgusting ooze to find,
she promptly put it out of mind
until ’twas time for bath and bed —
then Maggie found it on her head!
Blonde as butter, tightly permed,
her hair was slipsy and be-wormed.
Said Maggie Mac, “Must not forget
that I’m supposed to be brunette.”
Uneasy were her dreams that night
but morning brought a worser fright.
when out of bed she could not roll.
She lay inside a giant bowl,
above which loomed a giant face.
All noodles now, a hopeless case,
poor Maggie met her fate — too soon! —
as downward scooped a giant spoon.
Maggie’s spirit flew away
recalling how just yesterday
her mother pleaded, “Maggie, please,
you can’t just live on mac and cheese.
You’ll turn yourself to macaroni.”
Maggie scoffed — what mombaloney!
Dearest Mother, far below,
her final words: “I told you so.”
Tippy Chairfell
First day of school. So many kids.
They swarmed the room, their hands like squids
lasso-ing blocks and chalks and books
with greedy glee, then jealous looks
if others richer plunder found.
Their angel faces pinched and frowned
while Tippy stood so quiet, not a sound.
Miss Warmly smiling called the class to calm.
Her eyes like chocolate syrup to adore!
“Welcome, dears,” she said and raised her palm.
“I’ve just one rule for you. Forevermore,
your chairs must all have four feet on the floor.”
“Like this then?” Mandy Shady asked,
pretending on a beach she basked,
her chair atilt on hinder legs
as when a playful puppy begs,
all sweet and innocent as mumblety-pegs.
Miss Warmly soft as apricots replied,
“That’s not at all the posture that I mean.
Sit upright, dears. Make letter ‘h’ your guide.
Sit tall — to see the better and be seen.
You’re not a tower of pizzas. Do not lean!”
The class re-postured all as one,
and when the shuffle-shift was done,
compliant Tippy checked her chair,
to see all feet were flat and fair,
but ack — one wedged afoul a carpet square!
Poor Tippy pushing in reverse
directly made the matter worse.
A puckered tile she clipped, it flipped,
and down a hell-bound sluice she slipped.
Then quick as crabs, the ragged tile re-zipped.
Mandy Shady gazed in shock.
’Twas almost recess by the clock.
There wasn’t time enough to grass
how Tippy Chairfell left the class
without a pass — down a crevasse!
Miss Warmly took attendance in the morning.
She noted Tippy absent, and was prayerful.
She hoped the class now knew to heed her warning.
“Oh YES, Miss Warmly, WE must ALL be CAREful,
or we might end like slippy Tippy Chairfell.”
Phllp Willis
Imagine the rollicking games you’ll play —
like Dolphin Boy in Danger Bay!
You’ll dive for coins, set bubbles a-blow,
torpedo the floaties you scope from below…
Just like a seal, free as an otter,
open your eyes when you swim underwater.
Phillip was worried the chlorine would sting.
And there was another too-terrible thing:
if unhappy eyes should make Phillip cry,
he’d never come out of the pool, he would die.
Then Phillip decided he had to be brave.
That was the way for a boy to behave.
His eyes did not burn! Yet slightly they shrank.
They slid from their sockets, like marbles they sank.
Bouncing on plaster, they rolled to the drain:
sincerely brown eyes, they were ne’er seen again.
So Phllp he became, the kids cracking wise,
the day poor Phillip lost both of his eyes.
Violet Shrinkie
A very, very
bashful kid:
she said she’d die,
and so she did.
Angelo Salad
’Twas never a sadder story told
in lullaby or ballad
than this you’ll hear me now unfold,
the tale of Angelo Salad.
A spirited boy and brash he was
a-play on grass or dirt.
A pitiful end he met because
he dearly loved dessert.
“What’s sweet, dear ladies, on your board
to go with meat and greens?
A slice of pie’s the best reward
for finishing all my beans.
“A scoop of ice cream right beside
would make my tray complete!
Dear grannies good, will you provide
me pie à la mode tout suite?”
The lunchroom ladies frowned all three,
their gappy grins awry.
Their tongs they clanked unmusically
and gave him this reply:
“We lunchroom ladies, dames of power,
serve what we will serve.
Mind you, boy, respect our hour
or think what you’ll deserve.”
A twirl of steel above his tray,
a whoosh the boy uncapped.
Beside his meatloaf, navy gray,
a block of gelatin slapped,
A stormy silence held the room,
and all looked ’round aghast.
Now pale of cheek as ashy doom,
said Angelo bold at last:
“There’s shredded carrot in this blob.
There must be some mistake.
for carrot’s no dessert, by gob,
not even in carrot cake.
“This see-through pudding will not do.
Just look: a touch, it jiggles.
Gimme a brownie or snickerdoo
but nothing, I say, that wiggles!”
The lunchroom ladies’ fury rose,
with hairnets ’bout to burst.
A pair of tongs clipped Angelo’s nose,
his nostrils felt reversed.
Credentialed staff then intervened
to move the line along.
“Those tongs’ll probably need to be cleaned.”
But nothing else was wrong.
II
O lunchroom ladies, where do you go at night?
In caves beneath the school we sisters dwell.
We stir the magic cauldron’s bluish light
and mind the Hurly-Burly Channel well.
O lunchroom ladies, what do you cook at home?
A fenny snake with newt will make a stew.
Now and then we boil a roaming gnome.
On Bratwurst Night, we feast on brats and brew!
O lunchroom ladies, what does the future hold?
The cauldron’s light fore-glimmers things to come.
Statistically the young grow merely old.
A fated few to self-made doom succumb.
III
An eerie steam engrossed the air
around the serving line.
Fluorescents flickered blue — beware,
a “trouble’s coming” sign.
On Mandy Shady’s tray there sat
a blob she’d seen before:
the aspic Angelo veto’d flat
now back from nevermore.
The carrot shreds she saw like him
and yet — how could it be?
An eye she also saw a-swim
within that rubbery sea.
Angelo’s voice she thought she heard.
The gelatin rippled and shook.
He called to her — the terrible word
that holds you like a hook.
Help! the jellied voice cried out.
to Mandy’s blank dismay.
She wreathed the blob in sauerkraut.
What more was there to say?
The tray she laid upon a shelf
where dishes disappeared.
and had a talk within herself,
how school was getting weird.
Betimes the tray on rollers ran
to where such things are dumped:
the Transcendental Garbage Can
for things not liked but lumped.
Marcy LeStickler … in progress
Gabby Nabors … in progress
Karl Stull - Creative 