Crazy Poem

Once a crazy man
lived with his crazy wife
in a crazy little lane
down by the crazy creek,
and of their three crazy sons
the second outshone the third,
but Sonny number one glowed
with a pure, crazy light
by which they all could read
the crazy writing on the walls
all the livelong, crazy night.
And every day Man would jog off
to his crazy job in Crazy Town
as the boys went crazily off
to their bagpipe lessons, and Mom
would stay home to bake more
crazy, self-cleaning pies,
or cut up the clothes for quilts.
But one morning Mom--
six-two, two-ninety-five,
black stockings rolled holy
below the polkadotty dress, nose
broccolied by a patch of warts,
left deltoid tattooed with
a death’s head labeled “BARB”—
had had just about enough,
and showed up on a motorcycle
so elaborate, so exhaustively tiered
and bedecked, so encrusted with
such fully-matured, rococo madness
that number one son’s light
began precipitously to sputter
at the sight of it. Nevertheless,
they all climbed dutifully aboard
and roared away, like crazy.