Light In Dark Times

Some say this is no time for humor

so I send them cartoons.

Smiling widens the face

un-gnashes the teeth, un-furrows the frown.

When nostrils flare, they let in more air.

Laughing is jogging, inner aerobics.

Forbidding the irony, an amputation

of an organ unnamed. My Buddha

is the giggling Buddha.

Some say the banana is a black metaphor.

I say grapes to you, hold the wrath.

There's a dulcimer in the spare ribs,

herbs sing on the tongue.

Even with a fly in the still-life

and a skull on the table there is light

from the candle, from a source off the canvas.

And when grass is paved over

something we may call weed

pokes its head through a crack,

can even split the rock.

 

I know about Tucker and Sean,

how they sneer, how they smirk,

but what they’ve axed may be pruning

what they spew could be mulch.

Are those not buds surrounding the thorn?

The poet cannot un-say

we must love one another or die.