~

I once had a joke

I thought was so funny,

because people laughed

when I told it.

 

I thought I would turn

the joke to a poem,

because people thought 

it was funny.

 

But when I would read

this new humor poem,

I could count on

the dead-letter faces.

 

How funny, I thought;

I caught no emotion.

 

The truth of the matter

no one was there –

no one was paying attention.

 

Decision?    Revision.

To re-write the poem.

  And I thought

  I had made it

  much better!

 

Yet still, 

it was like

a response

from a wall.

 

No one would laugh;

no one would smile.

Just blank slated faces,

looking off in the mile.

 

Then maybe, just maybe!

the joke wasn’t funny!

All along, all the laughs

being forms of just friendly.

 

So I revised again,

I re-wrote, and I turned

the poem into something

more serious.

 

But then, when read,

the people instead

found the new poem

to be quite hilarious!

 

Bassackwards or Forwards,

whatever I wrote,

was different!

so it seemed to me, 

  keenly.

 

So I gave up the write,

thereafter just spoke,

and I fell into being

  just friendly.

 

 

 

 

©2013, Marvin Loyd Welborn