Why Am I So Happy/To Laugh At Myself? Poem by Shalom Freedman

Why am I so happy
To laugh at myself?
To know and enjoy
My own ridiculousness?
To make fun of
my own pretentiousness?
To speak to myself
In other comical critical voices?
To play the game
Of being other selves
And no one real voice?

Why is the laughter
A kind of song
I sometimes
Am so delighted with
And at others
So ashamed of?
A fool a fool a fool
Laughing at himself
And getting through the world
Laughing and crying at the inner pain?