Mr. Magoo, it seems, had lost his glasses
And his wife Maggie couldn’t see much better
And so when they took a detour in Orlando
On their way, they thought, to the Magic Kingdom
And arrived at the Amway Center, they cheered
Along with the crowd in their Mickey Mouse hats.
“I’ve never seen so many hats,” said Maggie Magoo.
“This must be Fantasyland,” said Mr. Magoo,
As the man they thought was the Beast
From Beauty and the Beast kept roaring
About witch hunts and hoaxes and false accusers.
“I think the Beast has been bewitched and deluded,”
Said Mr. Magoo “and he sees himself as a King
Because he has gotten lost in the Hall of Mirrors.”
“No,” said Maggie Magoo, “I think we have made it
To the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror,
Because the Beast used to live in a tower
And now he lives in the Haunted Mansion
In Liberty Square with the Hall of Presidents.
He says he is the greatest one of all
Because he defeated the wicked Queen Hillary.”
“I think he is telling us to head for the Mine Train,”
Said Mr. Magoo, “because he is calling for more mining.
We can ride with the Seven Dwarfs in his cabinet
For some real wild ups and downs and crazy spins
On our way to Frontierland with lots of guns and goons
And paintball games where you can shoot liberals
With red paint and newspaper targets with fake news.”
“So where is the Great Wall,” asked Maggie Magoo,
“That the Beast keeps talking about so loudly?
Is there some new section of the Magic Kingdom
Called Borderland that we must have missed?
I think there are cages there with alien children
That you can feed while the Icemen round up
Grownup aliens and send them to Latinoland.”
“I think we need to go back to Main Street,”
Said Mr. Magoo. “This is just too loud for me.
They keep talking about 2020 and my vision
Will never be 20-20, even with my glasses.”
“But the Beast has promised to cure cancer,”
Said Mrs. Magoo. “Oh Maggie,” replied Mr. Magoo,
“I think you have gotten lost in Tomorrowland.”
—
Carol Flake Chapman has been a journalist and author of nonfiction books on subjects ranging from horse racing, the city of New Orleans, and the rise of evangelicalism. She returned to poetry, her first love, after the sudden death of her husband on a wild river in Guatemala shattered her world. Poetry, she found, was the language she needed for healing and for imagining a new life.
