Desiring laughter, and weak,
I made them laugh,
the citizens of my poems.
I was weak and became a poet,
and came to it so I could laugh,
because the weak need to laugh.
In the old days of rhetoric
when persuasion shook marble
hospitals—who knows what idiosyncracies
were used to whisper under doors?
I have been laughing
since professors made poems weak.
Beautiful pessimism is what I decided to seek.
Thereupon I decided I also had to laugh
And make fun of the muse, who saw
I meant no harm. I knew I was weak—
I knew I had a weak jaw
and would do better to keep to the law.
I took terribly seriously the first Greek
who lived in the city—away from tooth and claw.