Dear, dead Dad said,
“Life: the accumulated non-fulfillment of our expectations.”
But he was a walking drunk,
a functioning alcoholic,
drowning horizontally as he
swam out beyond the surf line.
Sometimes, sober, he started to look
on the dark side of it,
so he told jokes, like gems
sprinkled among the stones.
“Got a minute?”
He’d corner his captured audience,
sales girls, bookies, doormen,
denizens of Manhattan streets,
strap hangers, strangers, fitness freaks
at the Grand Central YMCA,
me.
When, often, the jokes were awful,
he’d laugh hysterically anyway.
We’d laugh along for the ride.

What the Hell!
We all self medicate.
What difference the drug?
Xanax, Rusty Nail or a belly laugh?