Those Celebrated Masters of Comedic Insult -- Don Rickles, Carrol O'Connor, and Groucho Marx: A Rhyme With Message

Val enjoys writing his own style of what resembles poetry, just hoping to catch someone's heart on the same page.

I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.

-- Zsa Zsa Gabor

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It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

-- Robert Frost

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I cook with wine. I sometimes even put it in the food.

-- W.C. Fields

"Leave your precious ego at home before you come:"

warning to guests of Dean Martin's "Roasting Show"

because every sensitive ego would surely succumb

under Don Rickles' barrage of each insulting blow.

Carrol O' Connor, or Archie Bunker did racial insults

and all viewers loved him, whether black or white

as they were some emotionally stable adults

not seeing in any of it some malicious bite.

And Graucho Marx started all that insulting trend

that sweetheart of comedian just had to be forgiven

he was like your "enemy" -- whom you saw as a friend

namely, if your fussing personality was not by ego driven.

This world is full of some oversensitive folks

at a drop of needle they jump to the ceiling

not able to take some little personal jokes

without going in a spasm of a hurt feeling.

Taking ourselves as a target of laugh

is about healthiest thing we could do

all humor about others is not enough

to heal fake importance of me and you.

Wimps use humor as the compensation

by finding something funny about others

but get insulted with sudden ego deflation

when those others tell them all that bothers.

If you ain't able to laugh at yourself -- something's wrong

while just expecting to be verbally pampered with praise

this world will keep beating on your ego and before long

you'll have to see yourself as a part of the world's craze.

Don't go selective whose dark humor to trust

you've got to snap out from a defensive mood

stop taking yourself too seriously -- that you must

then you'll discover in every humor something good.

For if you happen to dislike, or even envy a dude

even his compliments won't sound like much

but if that could somehow help your mood

you can always keep him out of touch.

© 2022 Val Karas