the darkness and love of laughter

you know i used to think

poems couldn’t be funny

i was told they were only

supposed to make you feel 

something

so i’m feeling this out

i’ll say i used to laugh

like it was a concession

to life’s finer moments

sort of an intermittent hiss 

a sort of soft low rumble

but these days i laugh 

often and loud

like i’ve got nothing better

to do 

‘cause that’s mostly true

i’ve got nothing better

for getting through

than to laugh

like thunder, like mountain

as much as i’m allowed

i want every child to grow

up happy and have a home

but i also can’t help laughing

when they fall 

it’s just such a disaster

lucky nothing heals

scraped skin like laughter

so when it all gets dark

i pick apart my archives

to pull me out of patches

and prove it doesn’t 

have to be so heavy

after all

like smoking with friends 

when they decide to dig 

up an onion one of them

had planted months ago

pulling the puny bulb 

out of the ground 
in the pale moonlight 

remarking that 

it’s best to dig up onions

at night 

or years ago we played 

the game what is your biggest fear

and in sweet succession

we said losing, being a loser, 

not succeeding and 

i don’t know probably

being eaten by something

like watching a coworker

delicately pour molten cheese

into a metal container and 

catching the terror in his face 

when it nearly went all 

Pompeii

i love a great mess

like when life perfects

itself into the shape 

of a bowl of popcorn

glistening 

and you start 

to think you’re a fan of living

then you drop the whole thing

like catching the premiere

of Cyberbully in a cabin 

in northern Nevis

and when the neighbors

gave us strange looks

while we were smoking 

James had the presence

of mind to yell

it makes us feel good

like dropping a bomb in 

the basement toilet of your

first girlfriend's house only to find 
out very shortly after that the flush

doesn’t work and forget the flush

there isn’t even water in this toilet

so what’s a young lad to do except

wrap that turd in toilet paper 

and run into the garage thanking 

all my stars i wasn’t seen

and placed my poop in the garbage 

it wasn’t very funny at the time

casually she sips her chai

says it tastes like babies

i say no it doesn’t

like getting called into work

while taking your first whip-it

at 11am and you’re still tripping

acid so you pull up your starched

pants as if you were preparing

the corpse for your own funeral

and your also-tripping friend

walks with you making you laugh

even though you left the front door

to the store unlocked you walked

through that door with a goofy grin

and my boss told me i was trying

too hard that i needed to relax

like running out of noodles

at Noodles & Company 

so you tell folks to try 

Chipotle since all we have

is Company

like Louis conning James

into getting drunk for the first

time it happened so fast

he said yes yes you must drink

all the schnapps or the 

whiskey will burn

like when Noor, our dopey coworker,

took us up on our offer to come visit

and sat in the midst of our electric

enclave with his mouth hung open

asking where the girls were

like when i tried to do a whip-it

and the ballon blew all that sweet

nitrous back into my face

and Louis laughed in such a 

booming beautiful way it echoed

off the walls for hours 

even louder than his snoring

and some laughs 

make you wish you were

the funniest person in the world

so you could summon it

whenever you wanted

a laugh like flying geese

like liquid tinsel like cookie 

dough ice cream

casually she admits

i slaughtered a raccoon once

and i admit

i want to marry this murderer

my father abandoned his car

in a blizzard by the highway 

and beat the shit out of it

with a crowbar disappearing

into the wintry night leaving 

behind seven years worth of 

Sports Illustrated in his

trunk a chunk which is still 

missing from his collection

for some reason 

i love these post-divorce

stories they make me 

feel like a child again

my father trying to reserve

a hotel with that pimp-ass

pool he wanted so bad

my father embarrassed

when they brought out

our to-go cheesecakes  

in enormous grocery bags

my father whose laugh

i still hear echoing from

the mountains he escaped to

whose laugh is the mountain

i dream of escaping to

when we were young and dumb

we did some pretty abhorrent 

shit like drop each others pants

and stick our bare ass in

popcorn bowls just to see if 

it fits 

when we were older and still 

pretty dumb Louis decided it 

was more fun to do whip-its 

standing up which was pretty

funny until there was a crash

and i turned around to see him

passed out over the coffee table

stacked with glass and maybe 

it was because i was tripping 

or the way he was splayed out

but i thought he was dead

and i tried to get him up 

but that was a poor time 
to realize i was too weak

to pick up any of my friends

and once he came to

there was only a brief moment

of confusion before we were all

laughing but he knew how much

it scared me and he was sorry

we hugged but i went to lay 
in my bed
and while i was there

laughter spun over and

through me like a mobile

as my tears slid 

between the wrinkles

of my aching cheeks