COMEDY Poem: Mystic Morton, by Tomiko Halstead

Mystic Morton was a wizard
Spells and magic galore
I have found I disagree;
Yet one has bound to adore

He knew many chants and rituals
But this he liked most:
His bobcat Michelangelo
would turn into golden brown toast!

He’d done it without mistake
Michelangelo back!
This time it went different,
Michelangelo, still, dead slack

Mystic Morton cried with anguish
Head in his hands he sobbed
How could this happen? No answer!
He felt wrongly robbed.

Was this mishap his fault? And how?
“Steal a peek at the spell,
Did I speak it incorrectly?”
Oh dear, this wasn’t going well.

“Aha, I got it now!” he said,
thrice reading his chant.
“Wow, instead of ‘toast’ I said ‘ghost’!”
An issue, very scant.

With a lick of his lips, he boomed,
“Transformatio Michelangelo!”
No longer in stasis,
the bobcat exclaimed “hello”!

“Stuttering stardust! He can talk!”
Mystic Morton uttered.
“I won’t turn you toast again!”
“You better,” the cat spluttered.