happyless

30 poems in 5 days

I want to be happy every day now. Not happy telling secrets over landings

or whispering about the neighbors wife, but happy like Spencer Tracy in

"Guess who's coming to dinner",

knowing that Black folk was now the ritual you hum along to; Monk

hummed his way through the ugly of reticence, the ugly of

Art Blakey and Nelly;  ugly as sin but beauty rarely cares

that spring never stops improving/

The doomsday preppers have this pessimistic view of mankind,

that it cant console itself long enough after all civilization is lost

to laugh again at Bob Hope telling golf jokes, so they store,

in their concrete store houses, cans of pork and beans and chili

and 22 ammo and jugs of water (and I too question the

congruency) but the end, I suspect, there's  happiness.

But if you're the last man alive and you own al the rivers of the world

there are still those you cant drink from. Still those not crossable,

still those that go dark over sunlit skies. Still those so turbid

and full of dead folk you pray out loud, to the last God standing,

to let you have happiness. Again, in the world with it's

turmoil you've survived.

So its gets cold and people are unhappy, so they go to the casino

and loose their money and leave unhappy. Then they get on

the highway, get cut off by a stranger, yells profanity out the window

at another unhappy person, obscenities that cant be mentioned here

in a poem about happiness, but you get my drift?

So you go home alone

and warm the house up to 76 degrees ever knowing the heating bill

is already out of sight and you drag out the Dorito's

and the 2 liter Mountain Dew because some poet said

that happiness is fleeting. And it is. So you raise your

temperature and your blood pressure and your blood sugar in a room

where the lover that left you last felt

that happy heart of yours.

Reviews

[Beccy]

This life is full of obstacles, twists and turns; some real, some imagined, and others, no more than, as you say, those propounded by the doomsday preppers.

Unhappy is a state of mind that always sees the half empty cup, never the beautiful gift of our three score year and ten. I would not like to be happyless, or the last person alive.

Beccy.

[Ken Simm.]

I can identify with this. The black dog follows a lot of the time. The rest we sweat the small things. They seem to come in batches as if what they used to call our bio rythmns are out. This is what they would bleed us for in olden times. To release the melancoly humours. I can't really say I like it. Hits too close for that but Damn it, I like it!

[Frank]

Your are alive, you rise to feel the sun on your face warming, You are pain free (hopefully) and remember the love that you had from those who nurtured you as a babe and you thank them in that special place reserved for them and for those that touch you with their spirit. There is much in this life to thank God for, and if you are not ready to meet Him in time no doubt you will visit Him or He will visit you,

We cannot blame others that they are not as balanced as us, they have their own limitations all we can do is to avoid the ones we cannot help. Our love has to be parcelled out as a limited resource, there is only so much to go around.

I enjoyed the read and can identify with your thoughts.

"So you raise your
temperature and your blood pressure and your blood sugar in a room
where the lover that left you last felt
that happy heart of yours."

Love hurts, it sure does. Without love we are like that proverbial ship without an anchor. We are made that way.