Comedy Is Simply a Funny Way of Being Serious

Comedy is Simply a Funny Way of Being Serious


"Whatever can be forgiven must be
forgiven." Who said that? Well, it's easy
to look up a quote. The searching is free.
So I type, "forgiven", press the return key,
and get eleven million hits. Fuck me!
Is the concept of forgiveness truly
that popular? Or am I just a clumsy

Searcher? I type the whole phrase on the E-
Quote, but that's an insurance site. Fuck me!
I'm not a Luddite, so this should be easy.
I search "quote" and "forgiven", find Brainy-
Quote.com, and get five hundred and eighty
hits, including this by Aesop: "Injuries
may be forgiven, but not by you or me."

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Of course, you should immediately know
that I invented this quote for this poem.

If you want to fact-check me, then please go
do your thing, but who the hell fact checks
poems?

A good line or stanza break creates more
than a hole--white space is adjected
inside a poem.

A doubled curse is stronger than one alone,
but should a proper poet curse in a poem?

I don't know which geeks call this site
their home, but I'm lucky that "Brainy"
half-rhymed for this poem.

"What a dog I got. His favorite bone
is in my arm."
That's a Dangerfield joke.

Of course, you should immediately know
that I invented this quote for this poem.

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William Carlos Williams writes, "It is
difficult to get the news from poems/yet men
die miserably every day/for lack/of what is
found there." whose fault is that?
The readers named You or the poets named We?

We know there are irrevocable crimes--
murder, rape, theft, fist to face--are there
words, or combinations of words, that cross
the line, or worse, grow obscene wings
and fly like birds?

Rodney Dangerfield was a stage name, a lie
that, with each self-loathing punch line,
kept growing until the Rodney mask completely
disguised the face of a Jewish kid named
Jacob Cohen.

It is difficult to forgive the poem
that spends its time in search
of the next joke.


Sherman Alexie

found in his book FACE.