All Comments on 'Punch Line'

the longer the lead in, the better it had to be, in short, (ah, ha,ha,ah) comes off as too, too, too.. I know this seems to counter intuitive...( but who are you gonna trust, a pissed off poet, or a comedian?)

100

Everyone would get it with this, strenghtens the title, which is what you want to do

Punch Line

Boy!

What’s the matter with him,

he never heard the word before?

Ya’d think we took his bike,

and trashed that piece a crap

the other side of the tracks.

Part of me thinks I'd like this even better if it ended at "lookin down" because what comes after can be extrapolated from the whole poem, including the title. Otoh "Boy!" and what follows is both subtle and overt commentary on the joke and Sammy's reaction. Also only my opinion but I feel like "Ya'd" goes a little over the top on the dialect. An alternative (besides "You'd") would be to turn it into a question "You think we took his bike/ and trashed that piece a crap/on the other side of the tracks?"

I don't quite get it but this is probably me.