élan vital
When I need a laugh
I think of Bergson,
his studies of humour
ha ha ha!,
his big bald forehead
and strange Parisian ways –
shaving dogs
along the boulevards
with those angry loveable shears
of dissonance –
but most of all
I think of Proust
as a best man
(dressed like a dumbwaiter
and platituding)
and then
I am on the floor
laughing.
Short of breath
rolling wheelbarrow of a man
much clutching
of gut.
Giving myself hiccups
with the strain
of my honest
laughter.