Laughter and Loneliness

I’m posting this for One Stop Poetry's, “A Saturday celebration – Your Past”.

I wrote this in 1959, not long after I turned 17. Most of my earlier poems had been parodies or generally had some element of humor. This one was more serious in nature. I was about to start my senior year of high school. There had been some sobering events in my life. I was thinking back to my childhood when my cousins and I would visit overnight and share the same bed. Sleep was always difficult because we would get to telling jokes, get the giggles and eventually get the attention of my parents.  I was beginning to realize those innocent nights of childish laughter sometimes hid other realities of growing. That was what the poem was about.

LAUGHTER AND LONELINESS

Full-footed, thunderous childhood laughter

Comes crashing recklessly through bedroom walls

In voices gay, happy; even terror-

Fied, and full of nothing but youthful awe.

Young blossoms reaching bloom has laughter softened,

As in every flower garden, rain

Showers’ soft wet kisses at times, often

Indiscriminately leave behind some pain.

With age, reality grows its weeds.

That sprout, choking naive laughter

And drooping the blossom and the leaves

And planting loneliness in the root thereafter.

Full-storm, thunderous childhood laughter

Comes crashing through the bedroom wall,

Sometimes gay, sometimes terrified,

Gales and squalls of youthful awe.

As every flower so often

Finds, the exhilarating rain,

With its moist, unrelenting kisses,

Can cause indiscriminate pain.