Laughing Kelly (1983)

1. "LAUGHING KELLY' Black comedy about the burials of several Lafferty characters. The titular Kelly won’t go quietly. His laughter continues from the grave. Here one thinks of The Devil is Dead and its "Diabolique."

2. "A STRINGLESS-FIDDLE NOTION" This nonsense verse tells the story of an inventor. He creates an impossible stringless fiddle and uses its music to bake waffles. He and his partners open a successful restaurant. Lafferty having fun.

3. "SYLVESTER" Surreal and melancholy. It's about a man whose brain is so large that he must pull his "backbrain" behind him on a sled. Lafferty was fascinated by the backbrain. The poem focuses on the fellow's divided existence and his wish to be whole. I set it to an English music hall sound because it is so parodically melancholic. It could be about Finnegan. Remember what Lafferty says about that.

4. "TALE OF A TAIL" A story poem where the natural order is reversed. A dog's tail is the dominant part. After being severed, it survives while the dog dies. The tail grows a new dog, a cycle it has repeated many times.

5. "ALL IN THE BOUNDLESS OCEAN" A sf comedy about a man named Roy who swaps minds with his goldfish. His new fish mate masterminds their escape from the bowl by psychically convincing Roy's wife to flush them down the drain. Then begins the journey through the sewers to the ocean. The course of true love never did run smooth.

6. "INTERNAL DOCTOR HARVEY LEE" One of Lafferty's great pieces of light verse. About a doctor who shrinks himself to work inside his patients. This is the little "he." "He" becomes a celebrated artist by painting murals on internal organs, but his artistic pride takes a hit when he discovers even older, superior paintings inside a patient's kidney.

7. "FROM ALPHA WORLD OF KAPTEIN'S STAR" This is horror/comedy fun in which the residents of a town are transformed into green, alligator-tailed monsters by a free soup sample. Behind it all is a boy scientist problem child who tries to cash in. When the cure is too expensive, they enact some small-town justice. Space-age lounge music.

8. "MEDICAL MALPRACTICE MEDLEY" I've included two versions of this because I really like it. It's a grim and funny satire about the detached Dr. O'Toole, whose negligence leads to the suffering and death of a woman's children. The mother goes from grief to a cynical indifference that mirrors the doctor's own. My second favorite of the collection, just behind the "Little Willy Verses."

9. LITTLE WILLY VERSES These are short, gruesome verses, a lost bit of Americana that Lafferty loved. Each stanza details a violent act committed by Willy. There is usually an understated or inappropriate reaction from an adult.