These are things we do not
   Speak of,
A class of violence that breeds
    A certain endurable suffering.....

  It is in the curious nature
Of survival
Which caresses the poor
And listens only to the nocturnal
Whispers of savages,
   Crude and tameable
It is accepted outside of the unacceptable,
     Where the deep concerns
For low income pass through
The eye of a needle and they
Can shout from a safe distance
With charitable murmurs
Enthusiastically hoping one
Makes it out of the ghetto.

     Home is where the heart is,
A heart of the unacceptable
With victims below middle class,
     Chronic renewal of violence,
Another ethnic man with darkness
On skin is dead,
The eloquent news states,
The futile concerns from outside
Keeping the animals in place.
   The permissible violence
Is lamented in segments and tidbits,
    It is good only that the poor
Might stay out of the unacceptable.

Love, the most intoxicating suffering I've ever known.

I wonder if they ever heard
The noise that people made
Watching them up on the screen
Until the final credits fade

Did anybody tell them
Thanks for what you did
For just a while you took me back
And made me feel just like a kid

Once the greasepaint was washed off
And the curtains had come down
Did they know the magic that they made
Still filtered through the town

Acting like we wanted to
Up there upon the  screen
They filled the world with laughter
You know just what I mean

Most of them are gone now
Very few that we would know
Acetates and ashes
Are all they have to show

If we took the time to tell them
Thank you for the laughter
Would they ever hear us...
Those who have come after

The mantle never passed
The best are long now dead
The ones who worked in silence
With words seen but not said

The names are not all famous
Some are never known
But, we owe them for the laughter
In the movies that were shown

We'd remember lines that they said
And we'd think of them and smile
They took us out of where we were
If just for a short while

Think of your favorite actor
Who you watched and always laughed
Whether slapstick or through word play
They all chose to share their craft

I will not list my favorites here
The list may never end
But, to them I'd just say thank you
A message I must send

I wonder if the next time
Or even the next time after
If they would ever hear us
tell them Thank you for the laughter