Friday, May 02, 2014

Poetry Friday: A Melancholic's Idea of a Happy Poem


Don't say I didn't warn you via the post title.

It's spring here -- a beauteous day in store! 70 degrees! So naturally, I have a bubbly poem for you.

Its opening lines are:

When Love is lost, the laughter's good and
gone,
The sun sinks down, the heavy fog rolls in,
Nothing is left to say and you know that no 
good

I know, I know. Please don't chide me. I know it doesn't sound happy.

Its final lines are:

  If I knew you, I'd sit by your side and
sing:
      This world is not our home, we're only
passing through.


See? A perfect ending. And in between, there are blue eyes, and black coffee. All things I can relate to.

So, go be happy and read the whole poem, "In A Cafe," by Gary Johnson, here, at The Writer's Almanac.
~~~~~

Katya Czaja has the round up at Write. Sketch. Repeat, where she and her son are kenning poetry.

8 comments:

tanita✿davis said...

Oh, my goodness, that's beautiful!!
- a fellow melancholic ☺

Karen Edmisten said...

I knew you'd get it, Tanita! :)

laurasalas said...

Oooh. I adore melancholy songs and poems:>) They are the absolute best. My favorite line is "You drink black coffee for bravery." I don't even drink coffee, but I love that line.

Karen Edmisten said...

I love that line, too, Laura.

Mary Lee said...

Just came from Ron Koertge's advice to get out of the house to write poetry, and wound up in this cafe, observing the girl with the blue eyes and the NYTimes. Perfect. I love when Poetry Friday posts "talk" to each other!

Karen Edmisten said...

Me, too, Mary Lee, and ours seem to do that a lot!

Violet N. said...

The juxtaposition of your poem against the joy and lightness of spring reminds me that tragedy is no respecter of seasons. Just this week we've had a senseless workplace shooting in a city not far from us and when it's close to home it seems more real somehow. Was thinking this morning of those two bereaved wives and how just a week ago (before this all happened) their horizons were probably clear and spring was sweet... Beautiful poem.

Karen Edmisten said...

Oh, Violet, how horrible. I'm so sorry.

Grief is like that -- so intimate and personal, and lived out against the backdrop of a busy world. In my miscarriage book, I referred to a quote from an Auden poem (Musee des Beaux Arts) about how surreal suffering can seem, how cruelly the world goes on while we are plunged into a private hell.

My prayers go out to those wives....