COMEDY PLUS TIME
The day in english class where a kid
drew clown makeup on a textbook
photo of W.S. Merwin and called him
“Ronald McMerwin” requires too much
explanation to actually be funny,
though Neil Simon observed the letter
K is funny, “Kangaroo,” et al.,
it’s not as funny as The Timbertoes.
And i’m a itty bitty boy but i aspire
to be like Howlin’ Wolf. How so?
Well, i try not to give little explanations
between the poems, when what we need
is showmanship and mystery
not another icebreaker, though a fun
fact about me is my boss is Mr. Slate,
just like Fred Flintstone’s boss.
This is not particularly interesting,
so let’s return to the poem,
which will be here waiting for you
when you get tired of that guy
who brought his guitar to the party.
In fact, the poem outlasts even the guy
with killer abs and a gravity bong,
for the poem is serious, up there
with the magna carta, though not above
a bit of slapstick. Of all species of humor,
doing impressions is probably
the most primitive, i.e., i sound like something
else and this is funny, though sometimes,
we learn how to sound like ourselves
by trying other voices, like Merwin,
like the stranger who bought us Smirnoff
and called the store the “lick her store,”
probably also said “tur-let” and “zink.”
i thought that was how to be a man,
mean and ribald and nonchalant,
so i tried on his voice, the way my wife
tried on a farm dress, posing barefoot
in the backyard, holding a hen.
If i tried that dress on, i might grow the mind
of a farm wife, staring at the fields,
walking among the crops,
believing my death is just another season,
followed by something else.
DEAR JOHN,
This morning a news story: For four years,
a woman thought she was venerating
a statue of Buddha,
when actually it was a Shrek action figure,
which takes me back to the days we both
had students. You confided One of my students
looks like that green ogre. What is his name . . . Dreft?
Now, i’m creeping up on the age
you were when you died; it’s like i woke up
and don’t know who any of the celebrities are,
except Chappell Roan who i believe
is a singer of songs, but what songs?
The internet says she wore almost nothing
to the Grammys. Part of me wants to win an award,
the least good part of me,
the part that is angry i’m not famous.
Some of my friends chose prison or prison
was chosen for them because they could not choose.
i remember meeting my friend, waiting in line,
the first day of school, how much promise
we had in that moment, how much hope,
and how much of life has been moving away
from the brightness of that moment.
i could not save my friend from the police
like i could not save you from becoming
less real than the books you taught.
And yet, today felt like forgiveness almost.
The wizened trees that were always there,
waiting for me, a sunlight
more comforting than all the screens.
And later, dropping off kids,
the youngest ones run ahead of me
to the school gate, moving so fast;
they don’t have time to say goodbye.
JUSTIN LACOUR lives in New Orleans with his wife and three children, and edits Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry. The author of several chapbooks of poems, his first full-length collection, A Reading from the Book of Panic, was published by Lavender Ink in 2025.
Read more by Justin Lacour:
A poem in En•Trance
A poem in Passages North
Justin Lacour’s A Reading from the Book of Panic