What’s So Funny?
Look at you!
Always having a smile ready
Unable to hide your mirth
Grinning like you know a secret
Holding in your amusement
Tucking your hand over your mouth
Enjoying life to its fullest
Restraining your chuckles
Hour Ten – Tiny Bubbles
Tiny Bubbles
I didn’t expect a full guffaw anymore.
I was thrilled with a little side-ways
grin towards the end.
The nursing staff helped
set up the Face Time
chats with the ipad.
I told her she was a
very cool Nana these days!
Sometimes that would elicit
a bit of a smile.
Then she would tell me
her woes. I told her how
very sorry I was.
For the Pandemic.
For the broken hip.
For the Assisted Living
and missing her own home.
The last time we were allowed
to visit Mom, it was outside
with masks on. She told me she
didn’t need that damn thing
and left it off. Harvey got her
to sing “Tiny Bubbles” and recorded
it on his phone.
I can’t say I would full-on chortle,
remembering that day. We’re probably talking
my own kind of side-ways grin.
And . . . a few tears any minute
if I don’t stop myself.
Hour 10 or 11
Poetry requires a radical honesty
that we are rarely equipped to deliver,
The sort of shocking truths
that produce nervous laughter or painful giggles
seeking social approval,
like masturbating away the fear of death.
XII.
And let me say this,
I watch Ravens pump
glossy black wings
Hear them beat the air down as they
fly low over the garden,
over my head
Or see them black
at a distance, passing smoothy
in front of Mt Abe
Or listen to their chatter and deliberation
at nesting time, and the first flight
of gawky fledglings
Cherish glossy curled feathers
found under their nest tree.
And I just come out of myself and soar
with each Raven sound and sight.
My totem animal not doubt –
or my next reincarnation.
Hour 11: Narration Patulus
I could see his epiglottis
how could I not have
his upper lip almost kissing his nose
with lower lip revealing strips from last night’s dinner
he was a wonder to watch
how could he not have
left ear and shoulder tilted in greeting
as he hobbled his head in the moment
and his small eyes sparkled
without a care that he had no place to call home
this is all he had, no-one could take away from him
who could have…
Prompt 11, hour 11_ laughter a haiku
A bubble of mirth
Guffaws jubilant in glee
Burst forth from within
Cross Country Trip – 1968
I had just graduated from college. I
was leaving home to seek my fortune.
Traveling by greyhound from Detroit to
San Francisco.
My sister and I sat on the side of the bathtub talking
about “Come Back Little Sheba”, a movie we had
recently watched on television. Why we
were in the bathroom sitting on the
side of the tub I don’t remember. Something
struck us as funny., although the movie is far
from humorous. We cackled. We chortled. There
was even a guffaw before we began to howl.
Right about then, tears started and the chuckles
turned to tears. Arms around each other,
we managed to bring ourselves under
control and rejoin the household.
I did leave and go to San Francisco for a week or so,
Traveled by train back east to DC where my
sister was in college. Getting a reference from
one of her teachers, I moved on to New York
City where I stayed with a friend of his and got a
clerical job at City University. About that time
a letter from my one true love caught
up with me. After two months on the road, I
caught a plane back to Detroit and began
the rest of my life.
Our palm tree
A palm tree planted itself
many years ago
on the edge of our yard
and now it has grown maybe 20 feet high
with big beautiful green and brown fronds
hanging down.
It provides shelter for so many birds
– mockingbirds, finches and
even an occasional Oriole —
who alight on it and sing
in the early morning light.
The palm tree is an oasis of life
in a tough desert world and
I am grateful it chose us
for its home.
Hour 11: Laughter
I used to chase it
venturing into the world
night after night
like a child with a jar
hunting for fireflies
flitting through high grass
From a stage
I did my best to sneak up
with surprise,
to lure it out
of hiding places
burrowed deep in the chest—
sometimes it sleeps
at the back of the throat
or nestled in the stray hairs
of the nasal cavity
It’s not easy to coax it out,
that takes skill.
You can’t capture it,
but, if you’re lucky
you can catch a room full of it
and it’s beautiful to behold