Toon River Anthology
part 1

(originally sent to The Comics Curmudgeon)

TOBY CAMERON
After I confessed everything to my Ian,
And he forgave me, and respected me for it,
Everything was transfigured
And I went out into the world, determined
To make a new day, a new start
And be worthy of that wonderful man
But as I walked out into the light
Looking up, up at the sky
My silly foot betrayed me, and stepped
Into the open manhole cover, and I fell
Down, down, and all the way down I thought:
I don't know how this could happen!
I'm not careless with manholes!

PROFESSOR IAN CAMERON
After I lost you, Toby,
I went a little crazy
And began to indulge in
Things I'd only thought about before
And by the time I finally died in harness,
There was quite a bit of talk
And Mary came to see me
And recited her platitudes
And I smiled, and nodded, and looked abashed
And thanked her for it as she left
And kept going on my ways.
You taught me something, Toby.
I thought I needed a young blonde
But I found myself instead
In showers and bathroom stalls
And bus stations and personal ads.
Your sacrifice wasn't in vain--
I just needed to get you and your kind
Out of my system for good.

ALDO KELRAST
I set myself upon Mary Worth
And showed up, unannounced
And crossed her path again, and again
Always with a smile and a leer
But she would have none of me.
I kept my disappointment to myself
But one day my eager heart gave way
And I expired there on the floor.
Now I lie here and I see
That she visits me after all.
Perhaps I touched that icy heart
More than she ever let on.
Why, here she is now.
Mary! I want you to know
I can see right up your dress!

MARY WORTH
Time heals all wounds.
There are other fish in the sea.
I told them. For years, I told them all.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
And when they put me aside,
And pitied me, behind their smiles,
(Let a smile be your umbrella!)
I didn't let on that I saw through it.
You catch more flies with honey!
But I think they realized, most of them.
Happiness isn't a gift, it's earned!
At the end, they knew who to thank.
The end justifies the means.
Toby, plunging into endless night--
It's always darkest just before dawn--
Aldo, dying of natural causes,
(For what is more natural than sleep?)
And all the rest of them, whose stones
Surround mine, as if listening for advice
Which I dispense, as I once sold apples.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away!
A stitch in time saves nine.

PRIVATE BEETLE BAILEY
I trembled between them. There was no escape.
Then I saw the recruiter's door. I stepped inside.
Things blurred for a while, and I came to myself
With my porkpie hat gone and an army cap in its place.
And I found that in giving up freedom and self,
I had gained blamelessness and slack,
And what was at first temporary became instead
The permanent surrender of choice in exchange
For the permanent evasion of responsibility.
And as I stayed at Camp Swampy, year after year,
I was astonished one day to realize with a start
That nothing ever changed there. Nobody left
And nobody new came in, and nothing happened
Until the day I realized I had been dead thirty years
And that all of us were already in our private hell.

PETER PARKER
I never asked to be bitten. I only wanted
To listen to a scholarly talk about science
But there it was, I had great power now
And learned quickly what that entailed.
A lesser soul, gaining what I'd gained
Might have succumbed to vanity or greed,
But I had the lesson of Uncle Ben before me
And set out to make the world a better place
Whether the world wanted it or not.
For my pains, I was scorned, excoriated,
Lied about in the paper, and had my image
Which I provided for a modest fee, paraded
Before the credulous public as a menace.
Is it any wonder that I finally surrendered,
Took the easy way out, married my girlfriend
And stayed at home most days, watching TV?

THE UNKNOWN PLUGGER
Here I lie, in a humble pine box
None of your fancy caskets for me
If I'd died a few years later, it might have been
A cardboard carton for my eternal rest.
I didn't ever ask for much from the world;
Just a small-screen TV and a padded chair
The one to sleep in, the other to sleep
In front of on the nights when I didn't have to go
And work the next day. I kept my personal data
On the icebox in the kitchen. My watch
Only told time, and didn't bother me with
Phone calls, headlines, music, or games.
When I was hungry, I ate a burger with fries,
Drank the cheapest coffee, married a big chicken,
And played board games with my bored kids.
Until the day I felt my heart burst in my chest
And couldn't puzzle out the medicine cap in time.
Now I nap under a piece of granite,
Carved with my parents' names, with a line
Left for my family to fill in with mine
When they can afford it.