{"id":18735,"date":"2017-07-17T09:43:49","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T13:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=18735"},"modified":"2017-07-17T09:43:49","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T13:43:49","slug":"the-laughter-of-the-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=18735","title":{"rendered":"the laughter of the gods"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The laughter of the gods is <em>asbestos:<\/em><br \/>\nUnquenchable. It&#8217;s genuine, hearty,<br \/>\nUnselfconscious. Wet eyes shut to slits; lungs<br \/>\nHeave the mountain air. A shaky finger points<br \/>\nTo the god who started it off: Nice one.<br \/>\nHe&#8217;d mentioned some mortals&#8217; pratfall end:<br \/>\nSinkhole swallowed family car, gas main blew,<br \/>\nDrunken, laid-off father shot wife, kids, dog, self.<br \/>\nMirth subsiding to satisfied chuckles,<br \/>\nThey take sweet foamy sips from the nectar&#8217;d bowl.<br \/>\nThen someone starts it up again. What about<br \/>\nHeart attacks, yes, or slow wasting sicknesses?<br \/>\nThe joke is contagious; they&#8217;re all chiming in.<br \/>\nPlagues, famines, lonely singles quietly<br \/>\nEnding it. Civil wars! Firing squads!<br \/>\nThey keep it going to maintain the mirth,<br \/>\nEach relishing the others&#8217; pleasure:<br \/>\nNo pretense, no competition, no critique,<br \/>\nJust a nice way to pass the endless time.<\/p>\n<p><em>(see also\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=11183\" rel=\"bookmark\">a poem should\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=15735\" rel=\"bookmark\">voices)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The laughter of the gods is asbestos: Unquenchable. It&#8217;s genuine, hearty, Unselfconscious. Wet eyes shut to slits; lungs Heave the mountain air. A shaky finger points To the god who started it off: Nice one. He&#8217;d mentioned some mortals&#8217; pratfall end: Sinkhole swallowed family car, gas main blew, Drunken, laid-off father shot wife, kids, dog, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-verse-and-worse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18735"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18747,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18735\/revisions\/18747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}