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Funny Man
You were a glockenspiel accused of bumping off
twelve little fiddles. You were our generation’s most
heart wrenching ugly duckling. You were Tschaikowsky
breaking the world speed record for a cappella
efsky-ofsky ovitch-ivitch rhyming Russian composers.
You had the fastest roller coaster electric train epiglottis
in the universe, a painted wide open grin, an ear-to-ear
clown. If laughter was the best medicine as the Reader’s
Digest insisted, you inspired a hilarious new therapy
A bouncing, flouncing, balding, cavorting, wide-lipped,
spinning, ad libbing, wheeling healing treatment that
has transformed our lugubrious hospital system into
smiles and squeals of health.
Above all you were the hero of our childhood. Whatever
you dreamed, we dreamed, waiting for you to reappear
on the Saturday morning screen of the Victory Cinema
or on the revolving brown label of a 78, a blustering
filibustering Walter Mitty, a pattering quick change artist
We smiled with you, giggled with you, fell in love
with you, named our kids after you. Danny, is it a
coincidence that it’s been raining since you’ve gone,
angels laughing till they cry, rolling in some heavenly aisles?
© Johnmichael Simon
2011
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