Simon MacCulloch
Laugh Tracks
Did Satan die here skinless, scalded cat, each hair a crime
shed wriggling in the alleys and the gutters of our town,
and turned to fishes, finless, mouths agape and belching slime
which giggling strumpets licked and blew in bubbles, swallowed down?
Was that a wicked time?
They hunted down the Devil with a needle and a thread,
to sew him into suit and tie and make him stand up straight;
they talked him out of evil, planted angels in his head
to show him how the blackest cat could jump through Heaven’s gate
to join the sainted dead.
But that leaves seven lives to live, and each must tell its tale,
and after good and evil something wild will prowl the night;
no sin too dreadful to forgive, no good too pure to fail,
but laughter asks no pardon, owns no aim save raw delight,
admits of no betrayal.
So now the cats are shrieking out of every TV screen,
and we who watch know well that they were ordinary folk
till laughter turned their leaking eyes that nyctaloptic green
to see through to the punchline of the self-inflicted joke
that tells us what we mean.
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