ZIZEK ON COMEDY

ZIZEK ON COMEDY

Oh, Professor Zizek
I love your grim, occasionally
brutal philosophical comedy

fat Plato laughing
until he shakes
the metaphysical foundations

as you
hit the punchline
spitting out the bones

THE MILKMAN

The milkman
was genetically tested

over the years he
fathered a thousand children
in his route.

That’s a lot
of milk.

SUPER BOWL

we were at
the Super Bowl
correction:

ten
yard penalty for
holding, we
were the Super Bowl

correction: ten yards, no
I meant to say
feet,
no I meant to
say inches

there were
interceptions, but
not a fumble, not
a safety you
blitzed me on
third and
two

I replied with a
Hail Mary

at the close I held you with
tight goal-line defence
(both of us
so killing when we
smell the red zone)

FOR SANTA

FOR SANTA

being full
of Christmas
cheer (divesting
myself of
any Scrooge mentality)
I bought
beer in abundance
wine: a flood
to leave for
Santa when,
feeling parched, he
comes down
the chimney

remembering that
next year I
must indeed
build a chimney

OH, MERCUTIO

Oh, Mercutio,
is this a comedy or
a tragedy that we
are called upon
to participate it

for there is so much motley
riotous laughter and
yet such pained faces
as if
something tight
under the screw
seeking release

but that release
upon the air, proving
elemental, yet
insubstantial, a dissolving
into nothing, the
wind scattering molecules
infinitesimal in size,
smaller than
any image might conceive
of the chariot of
Queen Mab

and your laughter sounds
has grown
somewhat desperate, as if
each jest was found begrudged,
all mirth weighed,
found wanting

licensed by the great dark powers
that would control, but
might pay to see
setting the limit
to all
not forgetting
such levities.

YET ANOTHER

I was forged
in the stars

but put together
in a backyard

or in a double-bed
at the height of passion
(unless of my
parents’ romantic fictions
yet another)

IN TUNE

Master ate the Moon
wasn’t playing his tune
then in the nursery rhyme
a cat appeared
with hat, and Dr Seuss in tow

because one
needs to
learn

at the feet of a Master.

COMEDY

I thought I was
tragedy

but evidently I’m comedy

my molecules are
bonded together
with very weak
glue

which does renew

and everything is
bounce back for laughs
without any transcendence

though favourite of the gods
those funny, funny gods
that love
to laugh their hearts out.

IN THE LIBRARY

when I am
in the library
I shall try to
behave myself

no going “ghostbusters”
be
a good old
not-seen-and-not-heard ghost

unless you
should whisper the

wrong poem
then

all bets are off

AS I WONDERED

the clock didn’t strike thirteen
but the TV switched itself on
and there we were
scene from Annie Hall
with Marshall McLuhan there
to shoot down pseudo-
intellectuals

in the garden parachuted food aid was
floating down softly

as I wondered how this
would all pan out
(pan on
the stove hideously boiling over)
could kill the man or
woman who
invented the word “surreal”