Thirteen Ways of Being Hilarious

Get ready for a poetry joke! Ready?

A man, a woman, and a blackbird walk into a bar. "Table for one, please," they say.


I'll come clean and say I stole that from McSweeney's. Only because it made me laugh like a goon, so I'll give credit where credit is due. (If you have a blank look on your face right now, consulting this will get you caught up to speed.) But then I felt self-conscious because I knew laughing alone at poetry jokes had to be a sign of elitism, social impotence, or something else that would make fifth-graders call me gay. So to reassure myself that I'm still one with the common man, I knew I needed to check in with Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation:



And there you have it. To my relief, the "shitter was full" scene made me laugh just as heartily as the Wallace Stevens joke. Take that, fifth-graders.

So what, in the end, does any of this say about me? Only that I could have written the following poem about myself if I were one-twentieth as brilliant as John Ashbery:
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A Poem of Unrest

Men duly understand the river of life,
misconstruing it, as it widens and its cities grow
dark and denser, always farther away.

And of course that remote denseness suits
us, as lambs and clover might have
if things had been built to order differently.

But since I don't understand myself, only segments
of myself that misunderstand each other, there's no
reason for you to want to, no way you could

even if we both wanted it. Do those towers even exist?
We must look at it that way, along those lines
so the thought can erect itself, like plywood battlements.
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I read an article a few months ago that claimed essentially that John Ashbery is the only great poet of the present generation. I don't know if I'd go that far, but he's pretty exquisite, and in this poem, he's uncharacteristically accessible. Indeed, like you, John, I don't understand myself, and Cousin Eddie and Wallace Stevens, these are the segments of myself which misunderstand each other. (Don't worry: I have other segments, too.)

OK, this has been a lot for one post. So in summation, I've offered up three ways of being today (not thirteen, sorry): two of being hilarious, and one of being profound. Take what you please. No need to thank me.