[Jim Moonan]

(97 depressing poems, 2,667 views and counting…You might have known this would be coming)
I'm here to break up this party of despair and isolation -- or perhaps more accurately ask that we step outside the room of doom for a moment and recall euphoria we have known.

IMO, Indubitably more challenging than writing poetry that is depressing is writing poetry that exudes euphoria. The kind that soars. Not the kind that smacks of saccharine. The kind that drips like honey. The kind that shuns skepticism and ventures into the mystical. Go ahead. Make my day. (I have nothing.)

[Douglas G. Brown]

On the Road Again

When following a hearse, I think a minute
Of how lucky I'm behind it, and not in it;
And nothing gives a feeling of euphoria
Like passing funeral homes and crematoria.

[Ann Drysdale]

Facing the Demon

It was the time before time, before his first wristwatch
but he watched for its coming from the high appointed place.
On time? Who knew? But expected, inevitable,
it came small and muttering between the hedges,
coloured like meadowsweet, thinking to hide itself
among the dusty green and the pale plumes of it,
feigning innocence like a flickering lizard
under the sloping rays of the time-to-go sun.

Now he could hear the familiar arrogant challenge –
I come I go, I come I go, as it rocked to its own music
along the bright track that was singing beneath his feet.

Now it saw him and roared, its lances thrusting alongside,
the grey plume rising and swelling and fizzing with stars.
He stood his ground, repelling the terrible chanting –
rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta – with a long scream
that began as the blunt head entered the space beneath him
and became a triumphant gasp as the tail trailed through.

But the thick plume stayed, rising before and behind him
to make a dark handshake over his unbowed head,
sprinkling hot grit to nip and tickle his skin.
Slowly it thinned and went and he headed back happy,
taking the bitter stink of it home in his hair.

[Aaron Novick]

Well, they say laughter is the best medicine...

Life's a bitch,
And then you croak,
But still it's
A funny joke.

[Brian Allgar]

Aaron -

Yes, death's a joke
That makes me chortle
Daily - till then,
I'm still immortal.

[Jim Moonan]

After starting this thread before going to bed last night, I woke up this morning to find no euphoria here. (Except possibly for Ann's puzzling poem I'm still rummaging through).

I'll try...


Dog Tale

The tail wags like a sensitive clumsy barometer
of happiness that easily activates after words
spoken with the right inflection; the floppy ear
hears what the heart wants; the tail thumps
at once against the table, the chair.

Or a pat and a scratch behind the ear
brings to life the flag at the rear.
Without a word their thoughts are clear:
I'm happy! I'm Happy!
and, if you listen closely,
You're here! You're Here!

[Roger Slater]

Vongole

I'm as happy
as a clam!
But what's
for dinner?
...... DAMN!

[Roger Slater]

Happy

I'm as happy as hell
is hot,
and heat in hell
is all they've got.

[Ann Drysdale]

"Ann's puzzling poem"? Oh. Jim, I'm sorry. I always forget that I am from an earlier age than many a Spherian. You may never have stood on a bridge while a steam train went underneath and played the game of screaming while it did. If you ran out of breath before the last carriage passed through, the train won. Blame it on a solitary childhood in a bygone era. (I did a gender-swap for this one because I was, in my heart, a boy in those days.)

Perhaps this one, then? A more contemporary joy.

A Good Day

I wake with an untroubled mind, rise easy and slow;
the clock on the shelf by my ear says, “well done, well done”.
I-spy with my little eyes for they are not stuck shut.
Breath comes in through my nose without sticking or whistling
and trickles out of my mouth with no hint of a wheeze.
Spine makes itself straight; unrolls with no fold at the foot.
Knees bend to their morning tasks with no trace of complaint.
Yesterday’s shoes will be perfect for today’s weather
and I am able to make quite tight fists with both hands.
But I stop short on the edge of an Alleluia,
afraid to praise. This is not lately the way with days.
This one has managed to sneak in under the radar
and if I grass, someone might ask me to give it back.


(Can anyone spot the form...?)
.

[Jim Moonan]

Ann: “I always forget that I am from an earlier age than many a Spherian.“

That you always forget is both confirming and endearing : )
We – all of us – are living in the same moment of now. To twist one of my favorite lyrics: “I am here and you are here and we are all together” (from John Lennon’s, I Am The Walrus).

Thank you for that explanation of Facing The Demon. You have now brought the euphoria of the smell of steam engines and the sound of rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta into my world, so for that I thank you (“rumpeta” is a fantastic, beautiful onomatopoeic word– is it yours?)

And on those rare days when your youth bodily reappears - euphoria!