humour – The Lighthouse

Morning People

All my life
I’ve been enthralled
by the magic
and the mystique
of morning people

Morning people
with their exercise
and croissant
with their coffee cups
and yoga

Morning people
with their dew-kissed lawns
mythic sunrises
and shop shutters still rattling open
as they arrive to get a paper

Morning people
who wake, rise and stretch
without the solar flare of daylight
smashing through their window
and kicking them out of bed

Morning people
with their quiet trains
stark pavements and carless streets
Playing table tennis in the park
and walking dogs

Morning people
Stopping by to pick morning them up
and they’ve already been for a swim
where do they find the time
where did they get this whim

Morning people
with all those extra hours
make a mockery of me
an afternoon person
a dusk person, a night person

Morning people
they’re an enigma, a puzzle
a code I wish to crack
The morning people in my family
well, I wonder where they got that

At times, I’ve been an interloper
slack-jawed and squinting
at 4am in an airport bar
nursing a pint of beer
gaining the wings to fly

I always assumed
I’d join the club some day
but I’m still a night person
toiling beneath the stars
and sense I may always be…

[2022]

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https://linktr.ee/tomalexwrite

My Prescription

Too seriously
I tend in my journey
too easy to focus on the duty
the facts of what’s in hand
the doing of a thing

So precious
to see the nonsense
appreciate the humour
the madness
in everything you’re tasked with

So freeing
to have a sense of silliness
draw a cock and balls
on your mortgage application
scribble a cape and tights
across the undertaker’s pamphlet

Life can feel like tumbling
through grinding grey machinery
without a wry eye on the daftness
smirking
at whatever crazed fool conceived this
and those who choose
to ride it all so earnestly

Your satire, your playfulness
your dark sense
of what’s appropriate to joke about
perfectly timed
skilfully placed
to punctuate the blandness
hacking at the horrors
laughing through
the banality of the day to day

Without humour we are robots
in some automaton tableau
zipping from thing to thing
from job to job
ones and zeros
bobbing up and down

Every plant in our house
has its own voice
its own personality
they have conversations with our animals
all channelled
through your hilarious sense of things
you turn dull mornings into bright theatre
just never call it ‘quirkiness’

You remind me to see the funny side
keep pulling at that silly string
you puncture my pomposity
with a most gentle needling
You’re the best medicine
you’re my prescription
and, among so many other reasons
I love you for this…

[2019]

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Artefacts

Everything I used to touch
was touched with sadness
Everything I used to make
or say out loud
or joke about
was infused with sadness

A pathos to deepen all
a blackness
to accentuate all light

Everything I hung
was waiting to be hanged
in every tale I spun
I was waiting to be hanged

Somehow, the sadness
magnified the brightness
shifted perspective
brought my dark art to life

Everything I used to hold
was held as I was gripped
by a deep sadness

Artefacts now
from another world
Carried across the borders
of ancient space and time
tinged with all
that passed through me

And coming back
artefacts of the past
have one question to ask
repeatedly they ask:

‘Why and how did you go on
why and for what did you hold on?
swaddled in your black sadness
held back by your blank sadness’

I think I liked it
I think I thought it was all I deserved
I thought it rang true in me
at the cost, at the expense
of all else

O, how wrong I was…

[2015]

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G.S.O.H.

I would not say this heart is hungry
I dare not say this heart is heavy
I only know now, a surer sense of all I want
a clearer description of what will fire
the drive, the rush, the love in me

If we’re not going out at night
then can we just sit and giggle
at each other, at the TV, at the others
Can she laugh with me, make fun of me
until there are tears in our eyes
and can’t breathe

Trying to order a takeaway
I want her to crack me up
have to hang up the phone
recompose myself
In the saddest, dimmest
funeral procession
I want her to puncture my grief
with the warmest humour

She may not be a model, I don’t care about that
she may not be a mother, I don’t care about that
as long as she keeps me laughing
I know that I will love her, I only care about that

If one thing never leaves us…
(the sex can go fuck itself)
our looks all lost to scowls in changed winds
bodies crippled, aged with the years
but let us keep the laughter lines

We’ll sit in soiled, wooden chairs
side by side; in stitches for all time
on my grave can be the set-up
on hers; a killer punch line

Let us be the double-act
that light up people’s evenings
wise-cracks, sharp lines, quick-wits
Me, in awe of her gymnastic tongue
I’ll put that sparkle in her bright eyes
Oh, the jokes; just let them flow
let us never be too old

She may not have ambition, I don’t care about that
she may not be a mother, I don’t care about that
as long as we keep each other laughing
I know that I will love her, I only care about that

I am not saying this heart is hungry
I won’t say this heart is heavy
I’m just surer now, more certain
a clearer definition of what will make me live happy
the smile, the joy, the laughter in her…

[2010]

Thanks for reading.

Note: Another old one. Be careful what you wish for 😉

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