Laughable Lines

I've always been a fan of Monty Python. There is a skit in which a joke so funny it killed was written, and then weaponized to use against the Germans in WW2. That was my inspiration.

Our lives were thrown to madness,

our minds quite lost to sadness,

the humour was quite boundless when the laughter came to town.

It started with a simple joke

the funniest was ever wrote

and there within those laughing lines

there came a sort of badness.

I wonder whether those who wrote

new what it was from graphite smote

they put upon this poor old world

if they knew of the damage.

The laughter came and started small

a single man

a single house

it came and grew so very tall that cities fell.

The politicians claimed it virus

the medics all proclaimed it pious

the priests past all their dollars

back to the government.

We cared not from whence it came

to our lifelong shame

we only knew we could not survive its passing.

A trickster came to town one day

a little joke he had to play,

his manic grin, it led the way

the truest path to laughing.

He posted bill at the mailhouse

left as quiet as a mouse

a squeaking mouse who’d caught the pain

the poison of this laughter.

The postage came the usual way

the mailman made rounds

but as he passed up hilltop way

a giggle, then, he found

it quickly grew to a guffaw

and forced itself out of his maw

we knew our hearts were soon to thaw

and leave us dying laughing.

Our towns grew silent, then grew still, no voices now upon the hill

even death had died that day,

and he died

softly laughing.