Artwork Sourced From Pinterest. Artist: George Rozen.
The Comedian
by Antonio Rocco S. (Rocco Valentini)
The comedian is a clown
Whose nose is a pomander
And whose circus tent
Is a fumigation tarp
Filled with laughing gas.
N₂O
The comedian is not an apothecary
He is a mortician.
Irony is formaldehyde
In a world dying from a lack of sincerity.
The punchline is the time of death.
N₂O
“Lighten up.”
“Life’s too short to be serious all the time.”
“Learn to laugh at yourself.”
Laughter is the final sickening crack of the soul
In a noose pulled tightly by a smile.
N₂O
Perhaps if more people died laughing
The rest might learn to live by thinking.
No more Día de los Muertos
No more Memento Mori—
Memento te vivere debere.
(Translation: No more Day of the Dead, no more remembering that you must die—remember that you must live.)
Footnote: N₂O is the chemical formula for nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas.