Poems about Laughter, Giggles and Smiles



Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.



Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch

Love is not love that never looked
within itself and questioned all,
curled up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed, sobbed and shook.

(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then would not cook.)

Love is not love that never winced,
then smiled, convinced
that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.

When all
its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where does Love find the wherewithal
to try again,
endeavor, when

all that it knows
is: O, because!



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes―
I can almost remember―goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much".

So more than "much", much more than "all".
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother's there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back
than father's back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, and flew.
But, oh, a mother's tender smile
will leap and follow after you ...



Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch

We’d like to think some angel smiling down
will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,
ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,
his doddering progress through the scarlet house
to tell his mommy "boo-boo!," only two.

We’d like to think his reconstructed face
will be as good as new, will often smile,
that baseball’s just as fun with just one arm,
that God is always Just, that girls will smile,
not frown down at his thousand livid scars,
that Life is always Just, that Love is Just.

We do not want to hear that he will shave
at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,
that lips aren’t easily fashioned, that his smile’s
lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each
new operation costs a billion tears,
when tears are out of fashion. O, beseech
some poet with more skill with words than tears
to find some happy ending, to believe
that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these
are Parables we live, Life’s Mysteries ...

Or look inside his courage, as he ties
his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws
no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes
on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived
and smiling says, "It’s me I see. Just me."

He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures.
Your pity is the worst cut he endures.

Originally published by Lucid Rhythms



Laughter from Another Room
by Michael R. Burch

Laughter from another room
mocks the anguish that I feel;
as I sit alone and brood,
only you and I are real.

Only you and I are real.
Only you and I exist.
Only burns that blister heal.
Only dreams denied persist.

Only dreams denied persist.
Only hope that lingers dies.
Only love that lessens lives.
Only lovers ever cry.

Only lovers ever cry.
Only sinners ever pray.
Only saints are crucified.
The crucified are always saints.

The crucified are always saints.
The maddest men control the world.
The dumb man knows what he would say;
the poet never finds the words.

The poet never finds the words.
The minstrel never hits the notes.
The minister would love to curse.
The warrior never knows his foe.

The warrior never knows his foe.
The scholar never learns the truth.
The actors never see the show.
The hangman longs to feel the noose.

The hangman longs to feel the noose.
The artist longs to feel the flame.
The proudest men are not aloof;
the guiltiest are not to blame.

The guiltiest are not to blame.
The merriest are prone to brood.
If we go outside, it rains.
If we stay inside, it floods.

If we stay inside, it floods.
If we dare to love, we fear.
Blind men never see the sun;
other men observe through tears.

Other men observe through tears
the passage of these days of doom;
now I listen and I hear
laughter from another room.

Laughter from another room
mocks the anguish that I feel.
As I sit alone and brood,
only you and I are real.

I wrote this poem either my first or second year in college, around age 18 to 19. It remains largely the same, with only minor changes.



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's gravitron―
a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright
impediment to fling ourselves upon.

And nothing in our laughter as we fell
into those leaves was like the autumn's cry
of also falling. Nothing meant to die
could be so bright as we, so colorful―
clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain
we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea


Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.



See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn't seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there and burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are―that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For loveliness remains in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book's.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.

Originally published by Writer's Digest's―The Year's Best Writing 2003



Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD.
My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child,
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Originally published by Black Medina

Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ******.” The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch


Love Sonnet XI
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
I stalk the streets, silent and starving.
Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me
from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor.

I long for your liquid laughter,
for your sunburned hands like savage harvests.
I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles.
I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole.

I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty,
to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face,
to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade.

I pursue you, snuffing the shadows,
seeking your heart's scorching heat
like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue.



The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.


My Feelings
by Dolqun Yasin, a Uyghur poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The light sinking through the ice and snow,
The hollyhock blossoms reddening the hills like blood,
The proud peaks revealing their ******* to the stars,
The morning-glories embroidering the earth’s greenery,
Are not light,
Not hollyhocks,
Not peaks,
Not morning-glories;
They are my feelings.

The tears washing the mothers’ wizened faces,
The flower-like smiles suddenly brightening the girls’ visages,
The hair turning white before age thirty,
The night which longs for light despite the sun’s laughter,
Are not tears,
Not smiles,
Not hair,
Not night;
They are my nomadic feelings.

Now turning all my sorrow to passion,
Bequeathing to my people all my griefs and joys,
Scattering my excitement like flowers festooning fields,
I harvest all these, then tenderly glean my poem.

Therefore the world is this poem of mine,
And my poem is the world itself.



Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


How can I compete with that ****** man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his "eloquence,"
when just the thought of sitting in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?
Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.
Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle in my body trembles.
When the blood finally settles,
I grow paler than summer grass,
till in my exhausted madness,
I'm as limp as the dead.
And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you ...


Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To me that boy seems
blessed by the gods
because he sits beside you,
basking in your brilliant presence.

My heart races at the sound of your voice!
Your laughter?―bright water, dislodging pebbles

in a chaotic vortex. I can't catch my breath!
My heart bucks in my ribs. I can't breathe. I can't speak.

My ******* glow with intense heat;
desire's blush-inducing fires redden my flesh.
My ears seem hollow; they ring emptily.
My tongue is broken and cleaves to its roof.

I sweat profusely. I shiver.
Suddenly, I grow pale
and feel only a second short of dying.
And yet I must endure, somehow,

despite my poverty.



Sometimes the Dead
by  Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes―
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must ...



Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go―
each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.

They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go,
though we know their warm laughter’s the wine ...
then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows
endlessly on toward Zion ...

and they kiss one another as though they were friends,
and they promise to meet again “soon” ...
but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end,
and the mockingbird calls to the moon ...

and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines,
and the crickets chirp on out of tune ...
and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight,
seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.

And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time,
that their hearts are unreadable runes
to be wiped clean, like slate, by the dark hand of fate
when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ...

You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss
as though it were something you loved,
and the tears fill your eyes, brimming with the soft light
of the stars winking gently above ...

Then you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside;
if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while."
And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie
and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.

I rather vividly remember writing this poem after an office party the year I co-oped with AT&T (at that time the largest company in the world, with presumably a lot of office parties). This would have been after my sophomore year in college, making me around 20 years old. The poem is “true” except that I was not the host because the party was at the house of one of the upper-level managers. Nor was I dating anyone seriously at the time.

Keywords/Tags: Laugh, Laughs, Laughter, Giggle, Giggles, Smile, Smiles, Humor, Light Verse, Friendship


Published as the selection “Poems about Laughter, Giggles and Smiles”

Wheels spin
        Laughter Laughter
“Scooters are more fun” He says
Wheels spin
        Laughter Laughter
His father sits tired and old
        Bourbon in hand 4 ice cubes
                To cool his tongue so he wont
                        Yell at us to be careful when we ride
Wheels spin
        Laughter Laughter
3 bikes 1 Scooter the old kind before
        Razors were ever invented
                With big wheels and big handles
Unsteady and rusting
        “But Scooters are more fun” he says
Wheels spin one handed       Balance      Balance
                         ****
Down Down red red
        And he is screaming
        My knee red red
Wheels spin
“Rock in his leg” He says
Dads bourbon left on front steps
                The ice melts          Waste
And there’s blood on the road
         On the steps on his shirt on his face on the grass
His hand is reaching
        Inside         red    red
        His knee    red    red
        Out rock out
You have no business there
****** and *******
                         The rock leaves without saying
                                      Goodbye or even Thank you
red    red      red      red
****** ground and yet
He won’t cry
        No tears only screams
Scooter broken
                         ****** old thing
The wheels bent and spinning still
        3 Bikes and a trip to the hospital
Wheels spin
        Knees Bleed
                  14 Stitches
Laughter
        Laughter

Laughter
Of course they say
Laughter is good
Good for the soul
Good for the heart
Laugh out loud
Laugh in a crowd
Laugh anywhere
You are allowed
Laughter is lovely
Laughter is fun
Laughter is juveley
Excuse the pun
Laughter keeps you alive
Laughter helps us survive!
Laugh a little
Laugh a lot
Laughter is Brittle
Laughter is spread
Laughter is contagious
So it’s been said
One laughs then another
Until you cry
Doubled up laughing
Teardrops drops from the eye
Good for your soul
I can not deny!

Laughing and laughing, your mind a never ending joke of insanity.
           Laughing for jokes, laughing for tragedies,
laughing simply because life is full of horrors.

Scars and laughter,
        Your life is described in two words, scars and laughter. Wanna know    how I got these scars? Laughter, insanity, a fathers drunken rampage, all            feasible reasons as to the origin of scars.

         Sinister twisted laughter of darkened rooms,
Laughing and laughing,
           laughing for tragedies, laughing for horrors.
Why are you laughing? Horrors of the world, corrupted men elicit mirth.

Insanity,
           Scars,
      Scars and laughter,
Whose scars?        The scars of the insane man whose laughter haunts
the dreams of men, women, and children.
          Laughing and laughing, why does he have scars?
Scars, a permanent smile for a face too serious.

      Laughing and laughing, laughing for tragedies, laughing for horrors,
Tragedies strike, who’s to blame? The insane man, his mind a never-   ending joke of madness.
      Laughing for jokes, jokes of the corrupt, laughing for tragedies, lost  lives of the innocent, laughing for horrors, horrors he himself inflicts upon   men, women, and children.

Scars, permanent scars,
     Laughing for horrors, horrors he himself has encountered, a psychotic rampage,
             How did he get those scars? His permanent smile, Was it for   laughter? Not laughter, but a lack thereof, only to find the hilarity too late    as his face is marred by his permanent smile.  

       Laughing and laughing, scars and laughter, twisted mind of a psychotic jester,

scars from the question:

why…
            ..so…
                      .serious.

My laughter bounced off the walls,
To thick but to thin at the same time,
Allowing my laughter to be heard at times.

The laughter resides in my heart,
Making everything seem ‘normal’,
Though I do not know if these broken pieces on the floor are ‘normal.’

Everything is spinning; as I dance around and down these empty halls,
With madness running threw my veins,
Everything seems to be hollow even this laughter.

I can’t seem to find my mouth able to form words,
My throat can only allow this laughter float up and out.

These walls have been through thick and thin,
And I am quite surprised they haven’t tumbled down of yet,
Because clearly those cracks are quite scarring and would shatter any perfection;
Wounds and bruises are painted on the walls but they still stand.

I slam myself against the walls,
Wishing to scream out in agony and pure hatred,
But all that bubbles out is this maddened laughter.

Revenge, oh how sweet it sounds,
Even though it is the thing that is tarring me apart, making it into something bittersweet instead.

This thirst is much worse then this cursed sound,
It’s the worst, making me go into a wild outburst.

Laughter after laughter, nothing else,
Not even a single breath of utter displeasure,
Witch I clearly feel building up within my heart.

These walls should have ears,
After all the entire entity should shake in fear,
Every time they hear the madden laughter reopen within my heavy chest,
And flutter out of my numb lips.

Peeing: to ***; to urinate; to release the body of its liquid toxins; to pass or discharge *****; characteristically yellow- the strength of the color depending on the body’s hydration.
People have strange habits when peeing; urinating; releasing the body of their liquid toxins. Some people procrastinate it to the last minute and rush to the bathroom, barely yanking their pants down in time and shuddering in relief. They are those who habitually whip in and out, even when they don’t really need to. There’s the common usage of an escape from boredom in classes or meetings. Perhaps it even causes a slight blushing in the cheeks of painfully shy woman at hearing rushed tinkling so close by. And of course, they are also the people who love to leave surprises for the next person who uses the bathroom.
All in all, peeing seems to mean not much to people – a small part of life; but a very, very necessary part.  

                                 *                 *                    * .

The rain poured furiously outside the window as Emily sat, straining her brown eyes against the whiteboard flashing images of trigonometry from Mr. Well’s laptop, trying hard to concentrate. She was sitting in her usual seat in class, and also her favorite. It was a solitary table with a chair, away from the clusters of tables and the chattering children, and the only chair by the window. She liked to look out the window, even if it distracted her from Mr. Well’s loud explanations. The booming of “SOHCAHTOA” in her ears became distant as the wind’s movement caught her eye. She gazed out on sheets of rain flapping across the sky like giant teary spirits and pressed her fingertips on the glass. Cold.
Absent-mindedly, she pressed her cheek against the coolness and felt it absorb her body warmth. Her imagination kicked in and the glass became a panel of energy, ******* a little life from all those who touched it, vibrating with a strange purple light until it was so filled with energy the particles of the glass would explode and she would be the first to die from the sharp shatters that would spray across the room, causing droplets of blood to-
Ahem.
Mr. Well coughed meaningfully at her dreamy face. The class exploded into laughter and the bell rang. A skinny girl smiled at her but she was so lost in her own world, she forgot to smile back as she slung her bag on her shoulder and ran out. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have too many friends.
The dark skies were pouring furiously as only Bangkok in Monsoon weather can.
A walk home or a motorbike ride? A motorbike ride would be a little dangerous in this flooding… and with that reasoning she waved up a motorbike. The seat was soaked and so was the driver, whose brown leathered feet struggled to keep red flip-flops on as they sloshed through the flooded Sois.
Fat water bullets pelted her skin and the wind blew them ferociously into her face till her eyes stung. The motorbike swerved in and out of the cars stuck in traffic (slightly floating), the bottoms of their wheels immersed in ***** water.
The pockets of her school shorts were hastily rummaged through and she pulled out a soggy green twenty-baht note bank before running into the shelter of the lobby, dripping over the marble floor and completely drenched. The building-maid widened her eyes, and watched her horrified; knowing it meant extra work mopping and drying up the lobby floor as soon as Emily vanished into the elevator.
The plastic button with the circular metal piece glowed orange. It was strange how she was shivering with cold but her touch was still warm enough to light up the elevator buttons.
The usual itchy, impulsive, restlessness was building up inside her from the wet motorbike ride. Thunder roared and crackled through the lobby’s swinging glass doors and they vibrated slightly. Another flashing image of splintering glass splashed across her mind and in the split-second, she saw the diamond shards pierce the eye of the lobby’s guard and splinter across the floor-
She shook her head. This was what happened when she had too much pent-up energy. She had to do something- something reckless and fast and dangerous… now! A bolt of lightning went through her as a familiar wide open space came into her mind… the rooftop of her thirty-five floored building.
The elevator ride up was slow, much too slow for the fast pacing of her heart and she hit the metal doors with wet fists. Tearing out of the doors when it finally jolted to a stop, she climbed up to the top, running up the stairs two steps at a time and caught her breath. It was flooded up to her ankles and violent gusts of wind made her steady herself.
Emily’s Dad often told her stories of when he was child. “The winds in my home during Monsoon season were so strong we could lean into it with our fully body weight and we wouldn’t fall. It was almost as good as flying.”
Her lids squinted shut and the sensitive skin was immediately exposed to the pebbles of the rain and whipping wind; and in almost dream-like state, she leaned into the howling wind.
There was a comically slow fall and her bony knees hit the concrete flooring with a dull thud. She burst into tears of laughter in her own stupidity at thinking the wind could hold up against her gigantic frame and rubbed her ***** knees sorely. Reaching up to wipe her tears with muddy fingers, she laughed to herself again. There was no point in wiping away tears. They were so trivial in comparison to the current weeping of the skies.
Against the thick opaqueness of the wind, she could see how the view towered over a jungle of buildings as far as the eyes could see, with snaking concrete roads and skinny black canals. Slums scattered around nearby swanky hotels of the rich. The buildings faded into small dark shapes in the distance. Bangkok.
No matter how tall and industrial it tried to become, everyone ran for cover under this blinding rain.
Up here, completely a victim to nature’s power, she felt exposed; naked; real. The animalistic instincts inside her swelled up. Humans weren’t meant to wear these annoying pieces of material or shoved inside skinny architectural designs. With aggressive tearing motions, a pile of soggy clothes half lay, half floated on the flooded floor beside her and she stood there bare… and completely naked. Laughter spilled out from the depths of her naked chest with the two tiny hints of possible womanhood; it was louder than thunder. Screaming, laughing and gasping she stumbled around – climbing over objects and feeling the beautiful dizziness: a sweet, sweet dizzy. She stood up on a random block a meter high; spread her arms wide as her wet body shone with raindrops. The rain threatened to push her over, her soaked hair twitching heavily on her neck.
She ****** in her breath, ready to yell so that the heavens could hear but instead, the voice that came out was controlled with a shaky undertone of joy,
“I need to ***.”
And then she did.

                                                *         *            *.

His eyes are brown. Dark chocolate brown – a simple, solid color. Simple and solid like him.
Because he was so simple, people enjoyed his companionship. Though he was simple, he was not boring. Rather he was sharp-mouthed, quick on his feet, witty and observant speaking bald truths about people that either provoked them to scandalized laughter or humiliated fury.
What some people forgot to recognize was that he didn’t really love anyone. Plenty called him a close friend, but so absorbed were they in their own world; they seldom realized the fact that most of his thoughts were concealed. Kept in a little box of surprises in the back of his mind, and hidden so well nobody knew they existed.
He could spend months with a friend traveling in a different country, and return back home with no feelings of attachment. He could care for a friend while they were here and not really miss them while they were gone.
Most of the time his eyes were neutral and observing and they would sparkle amusedly when he had provoked someone with his words. This was how remained to almost everyone; everyone but one person. The one person that could turn his normally calm face even more still, the dark brows would rise slightly and a quick flash of fire would shoot through his eyes- and for a long while, they would burn slowly like two twin coals; the one person who could cloud his eyes dreamily; the one person who could make them glint wetly.  
He reached over and grabbed her hand. Emily turned smiling eyes at him.
A group of teenagers were strolling down the closed roads, armed with water guns, pasted in thick white powder, thoroughly drenched in the hot, dry weather and skipping over puddles (except for Emily who splashed into them).
Songkran in Bangkok: celebrated in the middle of April where temperatures reach forty-degrees Celsius, Thailand’s New Year and a time to pay respect to the elders in the family, but as most traditions, they became really just an excuse to enjoy oneself and in this case, one-year-olds to eighty-year-olds roamed the ***** streets splashing ice-cold water from hoses and water guns and smeared each other with chalk in buckets.
The street they were being shoved along was crowded with slick, drunk bodies. The heat of the afternoon sun shone down on their backs. The sign that introduced excited people in was sprayed by a passing pick-up truck filled with screaming locals. “WELCOME TO SOI COWBOY” printed the red letters.
Red-faced fat foreigners held in each arm a tiny ******* with their bright lace bras showing through the wet see-through shirt and their black eye shadow playing havoc with their cheeks.  Country-side Thai music blared in its jumpy, quirky manner with the over done sound effects. Those nasal voices of dark skinned women with their skins covered with make-up to an ashy white whined out of the stereos. A man with the head of a buffalo mask sauntered past. It was a mark of how wild things got at Songkran that eyes merely flickered over the shirtless buffalo briefly with a quick laugh. Transsexuals clad in diamond-studded flip-flops, wet white tank tops and mini jeans shorts the size of underwear danced to the blasting music from the open pubs down either side of the road. Their surgically-made ******* were all-too visible in the white shirts, their dark ******* poking out as they grabbed the crotches of good-looking men and boys that passed by, squealing and rubbing their bodies against white men especially. Most of these white foreigners had a look of bewildered pleased ness... for only a few realized that underneath that squeaky voice was a very deep rumble, and underneath those lacy thongs lay a very big surprise indeed.
One of the better-looking boys in the group, his green eyes and pointed chin drawing the fancy of many hookers, was pulled off by four pairs of wet skinny arms touching him and yelling in broken English, “Oh so handsome! You so handsome! I love you! What your name! You tell me your name, handsome boy!”
The handsome boy proceeded to manage some sort of scream for help while laughing until his stomach ached. It was Songkran; it was a merry time, and he knew he was good-looking. Kat, who held a secret crush on him laughed amusedly at his yelping.
Emily stumbled after him with Kat and parted through the crowd of ladies in time to see a tiny little ****** trip on her squeaking flip-flops and fall beside a sprawled figure, face down in the ***** road with a massive bag of ice on top of him.
“Hey! Are you alright?” Emily cried, half-amused and half-concerned, lifting the heavy ice bag off his shoulders.
Kat rushed forward, laughing but compromising her concern with furrowed brows and helped him up. “You okay Tom?”
He whimpered in pain and put a hand on his neck, rubbing it sorely. “That ice bag was ******* heavy.” The girls decided to make no note of his skinny arms.
They walked back to their group of friends who turned around and saw a limping green-eyed boy and roared with laughter. The noise caught the attention of predators searching for a good target and they were hosed down with water pipes.
Suddenly Emily felt a huge body lift her up and swing her around while hands plastered her with wet chalk.
“Emily!”
She felt safe hands grab her and looked up into the pair of dark chocolate eyes. They were a little annoyed as they flickered over the fat drunk man who released her heavily but it was Songkran, and he managed to laugh at her bewildered expression.
Just then they passed a horde of prostitutes and she felt him being ripped from her. “I like this one!” screeched a passing market lady who rushed in to jump on him. “I like this one! Let’s keep this one!” They dunk his head in a bucket of white goo.
She screeched with laughter and even at something that silly, felt protective of him. “Brad!”
He was too busy being attacked. “Brad!” she tried to reach in and he opened his mouth to call out to her. That was a big mistake, he realized, as he received a handful of powder in his mouth. Spitting, coughing, and trying to breathe through nostrils blocked with powder he managed to wipe his stinging eyes clean. The prostitutes released him but not before a huge ******* screamed with glee at his straight nose and thin red lips, and reached forward giving his crotch a good grab. He screeched in genuine disgust and fear, had a moments feeling of guilt in case he had offended the ******* which was immediately wept away as he, no she, no it, yelped joyfully and massaged his **** before trotting off to his, no her, no its next victim.
Where was Emily? With his height, he managed to see a brown head that stuck above the other dark-haired and light-haired heads being jostled out of the street by the moving crowd. He ran to catch up and grabbed Emily’s hand as the group of teenagers tripped out of “Soi Cowboy”.  
They stood for a moment catching their breath. Zoey, a tiny little girl with a chest that threatened to put her out of balance, pushed her brown curls out of her face. A red glow was starting to spread over her cheeks.
Kat laughed scornfully, her wide smile spreading generously over her face. “Sunburn?! You white girl!”  
They had all been out around the streets since early morning and it was late in the afternoon now. Rose’s cheeks were flushed and the tip of Kat’s nose was a little pink herself. The rest of them, with their darker skin, had tanned slightly but unnoticeably. They laughed at Zoey for a short while. It was an interesting group of friends: all of them of mixed heritages from around the world with different backgrounds that became common in the world of International schools. It was alright to tease Emily’s honey skin; it was funny to crack jokes about Stefan’s hairiness; it was hilarious when Zoey tried to tan.
Emily shot a picture of everyone laughing: their clothes wet, their faces scrunched up, eyeliner smudged (Kat and Rose had lined their eyes with water proof kohl that of course wasn’t really waterproof), their cheeks and chin caked a crumbly white.
Kat and Zoey clambered over her shoulders, peering at the little digital screen of the water proof camera. “Ew! Gross!” yelled Kat who was only used to pictures of her lips rosy from lipstick, camera at a flattering angle with a bright flash from her professional equipment that made her black-lined green eyes sparkle like emeralds.
“Delete! I look sick!”
Even Zoey, who admired Kat’s photogenic ness to a great extent, could find no words of solace except to say, “Me too! I look gross! Delete! Now!”
Emily just laughed and said, “No you don’t.” Of course it wasn’t a type of picture they’d profile on Facebook, but all the same it was beautiful with their wild-looking and uninhibited faces and un-posing body shapes, curled up in laughter.
Zoey snatched the camera from her and they fiddled with the buttons till the picture was deleted. It was regretful, annoying, but not unexpected.
Emily rubbed her sore knees and noticed how Tom was still rubbing his neck sorrowfully with Stefan laughing at him, shaking his head wearily. Brad was holding onto her arm a little tiredly, Kat and Zoey had their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulder for leaning support and Rose and Emily’s younger brother, Jason, were standing together, staring absen

between a bottle, and a woman... i'd always take to the bottle quicker than might suggest a care for a wife, and had i the mind to mind, i'd think quicker: but then again thinking was never a "mind-game" worth of sprinting to a horizon of known oblivion.

a response to intelligent response:
seems hard then the audience are forced
to laugh...
   how hard to bully an audience into
laughter, how staggeringly similar and
the thrown into the argument:
you're as imperfect as all all of us!
       perhaps:
    but not as ******-up as you'd like
me to be, akin to you.
           i still hold unto the stronghold of
a two parent family: you?!
     a disregard in the convention of
the bootsales of divorce: hope you're well:
in that magic act of making your
grandparents your parents,
  and leave me in custard foam
to attest the mud... of a fool's fair share
of cradling the auschwitz innocents.
the auschwitz survivors seem not to matter,
only those who make the image:
the ones mingling the friction of reality:
with the smothering of fiction...
           the unsaid being said,
the said being unsaid...
       i am the perfect forged from the thought
of being perfect...
      the response to "intelligent" comedy
in response = a nervous laugh...
              the result of a nervous laugh:
truancy of authentic laughter -
              comedy is unto laughter what
tragedy is unto crying...
             true comedy comes
with uninhibited laughter: it doesn't
come with canned laughter...
that's cheap... that's really cheap,
and sad... sad beyond wanting to cry...
          the comedy you speak of
is that of inhibited laughter:
  a one of a doubled-up nervousness -
smart comedies and intricacies of
drama spell out the same conclusive
columbo diagnostic;
oh **** me, have the *****,
i have as much attachment to it like
i have to acknowledging
a tissue...
           take this ******* near me and
i'll tell of your "motherhood"...
                 no, i don't acknowledge
an "intelligent" comedy...
drag me back into the rabble...
    the mob rule, the theocratic dream of"
man has no law above the quake,
no law above the wave, no law
above airy twirl dance, no law above
the forest fire, man is included to state
his sensual distaste, but with
the elemental per se: cower my dear,
into a pill shaped box...
                        the response of
intelligent comedy = a nervous laugh...
the laugh of the inhibited -
   never the laugh of the free-fall uninhibited...
and such a shame...
that it should be excused as comic -
to riffle nerves and somehow "laugh"
is no laughter at all...
  a man ought to laugh uncontrollably -
but to make joke into nuance
so that he might laugh controllably -
what's the point of telling the joke,
in the first place?!
    i want to laugh uncontrollably -
than nervously -
   because even though there's a "joke",
i'm half as serious about the "joke"
being a joke, as i am in attesting:
this is worth more a nervousness
in choking on a laugh,
with attempt, than
the uncontrollable lack of effort
that leaves me in paralysis...
        i'm not supposed to excuse myself
at this point, but i am apparently
having to muster up an apology
for comedy, and the comic strip of
of *lee evans doing the goose strutting...
it's still comedy, but not really,
monty python was clarity in
pig-head ******* cameron phelatio
in eton: outside?
can't be smart: you're not an insider:
it's an insider's joke:
they're not funny, they're eton.
     next time i find them funny
i'll be making the most perfect:
poached egg.
             americans take the **** out
of ***,
the english take the **** out of ***:
the subject matters of:
either - we have enough of the former
and lack of the latter,
or we, have enough of the latter
and lack of the former...
        to say that english humour is
funny is to also say that shakespeare didn't
exist, like jesus!
                     who knows,
give it enough time, enough
*****-akin historiological define-
     (definitive moment) -
   and that being?
is history a convict in the prison of space -
or is time a convict in the same space?
by comparison, is history a medium of
artefacts, with history the one owning a fingerprint,
and time, without one?
      it's silly to talk of an afterlife,
given that we live our lives with the same
impetus of *****: a tsunami barrage of
constant refraction and reflection -
        man in a microcosmos is the totality
of man,
                  man exists in a microcosmos -
what man is in the macrocosmos is what
we deal in terms of the misnomer attache akin
to god...
         it's good to have forgotten
one's original point, having written
such dribble...
        time is only linear in history -
but what are the truer dimensions of time?
if space has its 3...
    then as einstein suggested:
time be squared -
                        i only wanted the first
few words...
  nervous laughter is the response to
"intelligent" comedy...
      but saying that:
        i'd prefer "dumb" comedy
and allow myself uninhibited laughter
than "smart" comedy,
   and only allow myself *inhibited" laughter;
as i'd prefer imagining ***** flicks
than imagining myself welsh,
counting sheep:
   does arithmetic really beat insomnia,
**** me, too bad for the efforts of
the chemists:
  so we did all these experiments
to craft the pills, for general practitioners
to reach for the tarot cards of
       astrological readings?!
              **** it, sign me up for a cave.

it’s not everyday you get to end a 7 year psychosis
when redecorating your room to it’s “original” crimson,
having had such a simple symptom as
brain cell membranes breaking and oozing blood out,
to be misdiagnosed as mentally insane,
and when in need of help from the haemorrhage
not driven to the hospital due to the lack of *******
of having proceeded with the deed but forgetting the onslaught of law
in favour of the hurt party... well...what can you do?
move on, as i’m trying, had it been naturally based
on genetic chronology / genealogy i would have suffered in vain...
but i’m brimming with a hate for islam, and there’s nothing
to do but calm the quasi-communist protestors
in the western lands... ******* calm down... you’ll get
your freedom of speech... once you stop trying to censor vocabulary...
there’s no point learning a language if it becomes
politicised and you tell me to block vowels or consonants
in a non-kabbalistic way (which i’ll come to):
so yeah, a 7 year psychosis over a needle in a haystack...
gives me the shivers...
the many times i thought about killing someone
and feeding the emotions with not doing the act...
so many times i was almost skeletally biased to churn the
marrow haemoglobin into tendon stressor action of taking
the knife and doing halal or kosher with someone...
many a times...as many a times i saw crucifixions in edinburgh
not knowing it was going to happen in syria,
and that night when a muslim tried to mug me
in brick lane breaking down in the street of revellers
kneeling in tears screaming a prayer with tears in my eyes
of only one word: allah.
so i started redecorating my room, crimson is back from
hospital white... my bookshelf is rearranged...
on the left on the top shelf fictional books i either read
or didn’t bother to read because of the movies...
to the right on the shelf psychiatric and philosophical books...
the next shelf is a poetry “corner,” well it elongates beyond the corner...
and it’s split by a dictionary with the right bit of the shelf filled
with english poetry and some literature that’s poetic, and french,
the dictionary is planted to segregate the poetry books,
to the left of the dictionary is a book of greek myths
(did you know all greek theology is derived from the new testament
and not from the testament of orpheus or hercules or Perseus?),
then a book on meditative kabblah... then polish books of poetry.
so i rearranged the room, but i also lodged
an essayist’s book on melancholia, a book on depression
a book on an intro. to jung and a book on
schizophrenia lodged between these massive collections:
to the left all the art books... to the right all the books concerning chemistry...
so the books in between can’t really be seen.
as of today i woke with a p.s. from dreams, or a p.s. in dreams,
i woke and imagined myself talking to my mother
about the identity of al-dajjal... the false messiah,
within the conscious realm i just said the words out of the window:
fool you fool me, when mecca / medina become west of paris / london,
i’ll accept riyadh to be east of tehran / new delhi...
then we'll marginalise plateau east with copernican east
via the stars, and wander aimlessly trying to copper-fill
the sun at sunset...
he (muhammad) said the man would be of his nation,
and he said so with a warning...
but ibn saud got away weighing in at 160kg, diabetic and a brawler
with the stomach, the decadent of all that choose either sugary decadence
or some other form of mental instability in the chosen trade of stolen organs.
me? i keep my sanity with the tetragrammaton, cipher this:
this numerology *******, and it is ******* will not do...
enter platonic forms:
y is so so much more than just 25...
what will you see through y with the number 25?
what? nothing, dry brute that i am...
Y represent 3 dimensional space...
the first h is not important given the second h... which is deja vu,
which is less than what malachi insisted with the fractioned god of
the fractioned “elijah” reincarnated...
deja vu can be explained with science as one of the brain’s tricks
to sense this familiarity of seeing an elephant and acknowledging
the five blind men touching it up for comparative jokes,
the W... well... at least it’s not M... given that the trigonometric cosine continuum
begins at 1.... god is one... ring a bell? well better that than
beginning with the trigonometric sine continuum, which begins with 0...
forget numerology... numbers and letters aren’t related...
forget the dogmatism of rabbis - it makes no sense to say a = 1, b = 2 etc.
and then take a word like ape, and say: ‘ah, a = 1, p = 16 and e = 5; by god!
that’s a kabbalistic synonymity of the word... pea!’
where’s the jolly green giant when you need him, eh?
just look at what a phonetic symbol represents...
like secondary darwinism of a primate hissing to alert the presence
of a snake... past darwinism... past drawing antelopes
in french caves... in the realm of abstract phoneticism that
gave us the cognitive genesis... and made as... dare i say... a bit myopic
in a solipsistic sense.
p.s. ah... what are the newspapers saying?
slapstick humour is one of the prime causes of dementia? huh?!
yes, prime minister... is satire comedy?
how the hell can yes, prime minister be categorised as satire
if it uses canned laughter?
see that bloke over there... doing the omnivore pelican dance?
he joked so readily and active that he created authentic laughter...
don’t know where your satire is going... but it certainly left me gagging
for a springroll.
now now... absurdist comedy is too oxbridge for me...
kings and gentlemen get educated in either st. andrew’s or edinburgh...
we laugh at ourselves.
alt. to canned laughter, given that "canned laughter"
is reserved for the authentic laughter of the crowd
at a live show? what's the antonym of canned laughter
in televised satire? picky laughter... i.e. only one person
in an schoolroom of 30 gets the joke, apart from the comedian...
that lonely everest ha ha... ooh chills, frozen prawns in gravy.

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Where is the laughter that you bring me,
That melody of joy, so carefree?
In memories cherished, moments past,
Your laughter echoed, unsurpassed.

It danced like sunlight on a summer's day,
Chasing the shadows, driving them away.
In the echoes of mirth, pure and bright,
Your laughter soared to joyous height.

Where is the laughter that once rang clear,
Dispelling worries, calming every fear?
Its resonance lingered in the air,
A symphony of happiness, beyond compare.

In shared moments, your laughter's chime,
Brought solace, like a soothing rhyme.
Where has it wandered, that cheerful sound,
A treasure lost, yet to be found?

Through life's trials, its twists and bends,
Your laughter brought warmth, like dear old friends.
Oh, where is that laughter, I implore,
To fill the silence, to live once more?

Let it echo through the halls of time,
Resounding joy, so pure, so prime.
For in your laughter, love took wing,
A melody that made my heart sing.

Though it may wander, momentarily unseen,
Your laughter's memory, forever serene.
Where is the laughter that you bring me?
In my heart's core, eternally carefree.