Old Folks' Jokes by Ravi Shankar

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 9, 2014   Old Folks’ Jokes   Ravi Shankar

Porous the punchline spoken through wads of lettuce at lunchtime by the septuagenarian vegetarian who has never flashed a peace sign, nor could distinguish it from a Vulcan salute. He’s not the font of the jokes he paces in front of the mirror— even the one liners are anonymous, traffic conversation like air or money. Not to him. No sooner he hears one he likes, he owns it. Spins the extended bits out with panache, skips an extra extra extra beat from the end, bringing out in the eyes and bellies of his morning shuffleboard or pill- buddies, laughter in rising cascades that mistaking each pause as ultimate begins to agitate the rows of green jello in the thunder of many dentures exploding into pure guffawing.            Copyright @ 2014 by Ravi Shankar . Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “One year I volunteered at Gaylord, a Connecticut Long-Term Acute Rehabilitation and Chronic Care Hospital, where I would transport patients in wheelchairs from floor to floor, read them stories and work on helping them with basic therapeutic and motor activities, such as bending over and lifting small objects. Some in the condition of recovering from a body-shattering accident were understandably embittered, even despondent, but others emanated the optimism of a will directed single-mindedly towards recovery. One particularly mercurial and mischief-eyed twinkler was an elderly, health-obsessed, whiskered man in a fedora and too loose sweatpants who was able somehow to make everyone around him explode into laughter at his sundry puns and only slightly off-color jokes, which I took more as a result of his pacing and manner rather than the content of his jokes; I’ve attempted to use the lineation of my poem to serve that same function, producing in its movement the cumulative and ultimately timeless effect of completely cracking up.” —Ravi Shankar   Ravi Shankar is the author of Deepening Groove (National Poetry Review Press, 2011) and the forthcoming What Else Could It Be: Ekphrastics and Collaborations (Carolina Wren Press, 2015). He teaches at Central Connecticut State University and in the City University of Hong Kong’s MFA Program. Shankar lives in Chester, Connecticut. Most Recent Book by Shankar   Deepening Groove (National Poetry Review Press, 2011) “Hospital Writing Workshop” by Rafael Campo “The Land of Counterpane” by Robert Louis Stevenson “The Visit ” by Jason Shinder Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038