Is anyone else noticing that a genuine, unaffected smile is increasingly treated by strangers with suspicion and distrust?

*****

Recorded Reading (1:47): https://www.dropbox.com/s/62b4fsek31un3el/For%20the%20Dour.mp3?dl=0

*****

For the Dour

For those envisioning the New Age
Full of pious and
Unhumorous examples
Of ascended fellowmen

Rigorous maintaining
Great sets limitation of:
No joking about colored skin
Lighting farts, or love

Nor yet a pratfall — fear the clown
Might get its feelings hurt
Though recompensed for falling down —
Pays to remain alert,

You know, for any slightest
Evanescent possibility
Mistaken by the hearer
Might ones best intentions be

I say to these: Go back, go back
Your isolated cloisters to —
This world will never rue the lack
Of one joyless as you

Go back, go back — put on the veil
Which separates you sunlight from
Go back to rediscover
What we are evolving from

Go back to glancing nervously
Over your shoulder ‘ere you dare
To absolutely anything
With anything else aught compare

Go back to shallow judgments
To pursed lips, and plain attire
Since this be what your concept
Of dim holiness require

And leave us rest to really make
That joyful noise unto the Lord
Against express commandment
Two millennia you hoard

Go back to what is comfortable
Where your petty power lie
But do it quickly, so
The rest of us can pass you by

On our way to a little
Unaffected merriment —
Pray let us not distract you from
The mission upon which you seem bent

*****

Until removal of the stalker/targeter/vandal/arsonist following her allows her to approach any landlord ~ even for a private parking space ~ and to begin once again to create professional connections and to rebuild her life, this poet presently lives homeless and at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level ~ still working seven days a week to contribute to her society, however.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code #72D-31S, or choose to send a personal check to the poet’s ABLE account. It takes about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

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