Kafka’s Joke Book, Bis.

Three guys go into a bar, an Italian, a Pole, and an American.
     Such courage is forever beyond my reach.

Everyone says that in life you must follow your dreams. Once I dreamt I was at the dinner table and I spilled some tea. Father went to get the big fabric shears and began to cut off my fingers, one by one. This is the dream I follow.

How many of me would it take to change a light bulb?
     Even if I had that many, I would not change it today.

If only our ears were keener we could hear the butterflies howling in terror at the approaching night.

My fortune cookie: “As you read this, the tumor grows.”

Three blondes are arguing about which comes first, February or March. The first blonde says.…
     But I didn’t hear what she said. When they saw me at the next table, they took up their drinks and moved to the other side of the cafe.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
     The road was wide; it stretched before him like a vast plain. The sun beat down on his feathers, which began to shed from exhaustion and hunger. Eventually he forgot that it was a road he was crossing, or why he had set out on this journey. Was it a journey? He looked down at his feet—gnarled, alien appendages. What did they have to do with him?

Yesterday I told Max that if he didn’t burn my manuscripts I would return to haunt him. “All the more reason to burn them,” he said. “Having you next to me as a ghost will be just like old times.”

“Knock, knock.”
     “Who’s there?”

[To audience:] Sometimes you laugh at my jokes, you guffaw, you slap your sides. And here I stand in infinite sorrow.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Which will only give them the opportunity to demonstrate all the ways they can beat you.

For John McNamee.

Check out my Idiocy, Ltd. and begin the long, hard reckoning.

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