POEM FROM A PRIVATE ROOM
Don’t Shake the Bottle,
Shake Your Mother-in-Law
Solo 1: When I was you and full of rhymes
And all my days were salady,
Almost I could enjoy the times
I caught some current malady.
All: Then, cheerful, knocked upon her door
The jocular physician,
With tonics and with comfort for
Her innocent condition.
Solo 1: Then friends would fetch me flowers
And nurses rub my back,
And I could talk for hours
Concerning my attack.
But now, when vapors dog me,
What solace do I find?
My cronies can’t endure me.
The doctors scorn to cure me,
And though I ail, assure me
It’s all a state of mind.
All: It’s psychosomatic, now, psychosomatic.
Whatever you suffer is psychosomatic.
Solo 2: Your liver’s a-quiver?
Solo 3: You’re feeling infirm?
All: Dispose of the notion you harbor a germ.
Solo 4: Angina?
Solo 5: Arthritits?
Solo 6: Abdominal pain?
All: They’re nothing but symptoms of marital strain.
They’re nothing but proof that your love life is
minus.
Solo 7: The ego is aching
Instead of the sinus.
Solo 8: So face up
Solo 9: and brace up
Solo 10: and stifle that sneeze.
All: It’s psychosomatic.
And ten dollars, please.
Solo 1: There was a time that I recall,
If one grew pale or thinnish,
The pundits loved to lay it all
On foods unvitaminish,
All: Or else, dogmatic, would maintain
Infection somewhere acted.
And when they’d shorn the tonsils twain,
They pulled the tooth impacted.
Solo 9: But now that orgies dental
Have made a modish halt,
Solo 10: Your ills today are mental
And likely all your fault.
Solo 1: Now specialists inform you,
While knitting of their brows,
Your pain, though sharp and shooting,
Is caused, beyond disputing,
Because you hate commuting
Or can’t abide your spouse.
All: It’s psychosomatic, now, psychosomatic.
You fell down the stairway? It’s psychosomatic.
Solo 1: That sprain of the ankle while waxing the
floors—
All: You did it on purpose to get out of chores.
Solo 4: Nephritis,
Solo 5: Neuritis,
Solo 6: A case of the ague?
All: You’re just giving in to frustrations that plague you.
Solo 2: You long to be coddled, beloved,
acclaimed,
So you caught the sniffles.
And aren’t you ashamed!
All: And maybe they’re right.
But sh sobs through her
wheezes,
Solo 1: “They’ve taken the fun out of having
diseases.”