Thinly Veiled, Young Man Comes to Me Seeking a Friendly Face
Thinly Veiled, Young Man Comes to Me Seeking a Friendly Face
(The Joker)
So I’m out and about one day
when this priest walks up to me and says,
“Beloved bard, my mother has died
and my father is ill and I’ve lost my faith.”
And I said to him, “But faith’s forever!
Got a lifetime warranty, doesn’t it? I’ve
always wondered about that though,
Whose life?”
But, anyhow, this “priest” said to me,
“God’s become a ghost. An imagination
in my head. He used to feel so real.
I could touch him in my mother’s hands.”
“But now he doesn’t take
your calls, right? Right. Now
‘This number is no longer in use.’
You’ve lost your signal, right?”
The priest nodded. He nodded
and I took his hands in mine
and I told him, smiling as I spoke,
“The crow flies at sunrise.”
I told him, “Padre, I dreamed, once,
of a world between my fingers,
a world made from Muscadine grapes.
A world drenched in methane perfume,
oozing, like the minty stench
of cookies, cut out and called lives–
light and clockwork lives
built from porridge instead of wood.
In this dream, you were there, Padre,
wearing a thousand sweet names,
a million tender, soft voices—‘personae’
the academics might call them—and you looked so sad
you could have been a lovesick sunrise,
hiding yourself behind my name like you did.
And, me being the laughing boy that I am,
I let you wear my skin. And I grieved
with you. I wept with you, Padre, in this one
dream of mine. No matter what face you wore,
I took your pain and I called it Ambrosia,
and you and I split it in half, and it hurt a little less,
and you and I ate together and we became gods.
But still, because I loved you, I wept
for you, living down there
on that little, overripe, unmashed-
grape of a world between my fingers.
And you, you heard my weeping,
and you smiled at my weeping,
and you laughed at my weeping,
and you wore a wonderful new grin that grew
out of my tears—tears that used to be yours;
and your laughter danced over my lips
like the flapping, leather wings of flutter-bys.
Through your wall of chuckles–
through my wall of tears–
I heard you calling me. You
called to me and asked me
for more laughter—less pain in life—you hunted
for me the way Mars pined for Venus’s flower.
And, Padre, who am I, the Joker,
to refuse a laugh? Could Venus refuse?
Could Pandora say no
to that little black box
cooing gently in her lap
like a six-faced angel?
And what about Moses? Could he
not lead those folks from bondage?
(They asked him for it ya’know.)
But didn’t he come down from the mountain
full of good humor, colored hair, and poetry?
And, while we’re on the subject, where’s
your golden calf, Padre? Still hung
from your sad, pathetic neck I see.
But, then again, what’s a golden calf
between friends? Really? Those
Israelites, it all turned out okay for them
in the end, didn’t it?”
Of course it did. So buck up.
Walk it off, or ‘walk it out’ as the kids say
these days. No more tears for that dead mother,
okay? She’ll still be dead tomorrow.
And as for the ill father, don’t fret there either.
He’s just finally been let in on the great secret
of life—all jokes must end. And as for God,
that imaginary voice in your head, cut it out—
I’ll offer the knife—or take up poetry.
Then you can wear your masks and hide your hurt
behind me and I’ll laugh with you, and I’ll cry
with you, and I’ll tie a tourniquet on your heart.”
*This poem appears in Chautauqua
Taken from “…hide behind me…”
click to hear me read this poem
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