Was Jesus a Funny Guy?

Was Jesus a funny guy?

Would he have laughed at my pelican story?

Had he a sense of humor?

And if so, was it the self-deprecating kind

or the sort that skewered the pomposity of others?

You can’t tell me with those twelve disciples alone

with all those foibles

he didn’t have sufficient material to work with.

My guess is he compiled a joke book which the early Church

suppressed.

Did he do stand-up on the mount where he gave,

in his more serious side, the Sermon on the Beatitudes?

Humour should have been amongst them.

A person with a sense of humour is in contact with his humanity.

Even the donkey and hyenas know how to laugh.

The images of Buddha show him with a rollicking belly.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful but where are the images

of the jolly Jesus?

I bet if they met he would have shared a laugh with Buddha,

even exchanged jokes over a coffee or two.

I wait for the record to be rectified.

An ampler, more approachable sort of god.

Say What You Like

No one reads poetry any more, my editor said.

Not even poets — unless it is their own work,

He added with a wry smile. Say what you like.

So I did, but I was mostly gentle anyway

Ribbing Ted for his niggardliness, Angus

For his habit of laughing at his own jokes,

Even when they’re bad; Milton for his grandiose

Turns of phrase, peppering my poems with names

Of friends, rellies, family. All turned up at the Launch.

The book sold well. I introduced it with

a wry smile picked up from my editor:

‘Dedicated to the Ones I Love’.