A Visit from St Sigmund

[liveonearth]

Freud is just an old Santa Clause.
-Margaret Mead

"'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through each kid
Not an Ego was stirring, not even an Id.
The hang ups were hung by the chimney with care
In the hopes that St. Sigmung Freud soon would be there.
The children in scream class had knocked off their screams,
Letting Jungian archetypes dance through their dreams,
And Mama with her bra off and I on her lap
Had just settled down when a vast thunderclap
Boomed and from my unconscious rose such a chatter
As Baptist John's teeth made on Solomon's platter.
Away from my darling I flew with a flash,
Tore strait to the bathroom and threw up, and - smash!
Through the windowpane hurtled and bounced on the floor
A big brick - holy smoke, it was hard to ignore.
As I heard further thunderclaps- lo and behold-
Came a little psychiatrist eighty years old.
He drove a wheeled couch pulled by five fat psychoses
And the gleam in his eye might induce hypnosis.
Like subliminal meanings his coursers they came
And consulting his notebook, he called them by name:
"Now Schizo, now Fetish, now Fear of Castration!
On Paranoia! on Penis-Fixation!
Ach, yes, that big brick through your glass I should mention:
Just a simple device to compel your attention.
You need, boy, to be in an analyst's power:
You talk, I take notes - fifty shillings an hour."
A bag full of symbols he'd slung on his back;
He looked smug as a junk-peddler laden with smack
Or a shrewd politician soliciting votes
And his chinbeard was stiff as a starched billygoat's
Then laying one finger aside of his nose,
He chortled, "What means this? Mein Gott, I suppose
There's a meaning in fingers, in candles und wicks,
In mouseholes und doughnut holes, steeples und sticks.
You see, it's the imminent prospect of sex
That makes all us humans run round till we're wrecks,
Und each innocent infant since people began
Wants to bed with his mama und kill his old man;
So never you fear that you're sick as a swine-
Your hangups are every sane person's und mine.
Even hamlet was hot for his mom - there's the rub;
Even Oedipus Clubfoot was one of the club.
Hmmm, that's humor unconscious." He gave me rib-pokes
And for almost two hours explained phallic jokes.
Then he sprang to his couch, to his crew gave a nod,
And away they all flew like the concept of God.
In the worst of my dreams I can hear him shout still,
"Merry Christmas to all! In the mail comes my bill."
-X. J. Kennedy