ManicDDaily

A New Yorker Looks For Peace

Far from the madding crowd,
far from the gladding crowd,
even far from
the perpetually plaiding crowd–
(you know the ones–the kilt
and golf-tatting crowd–)
Far from the gadding crowd,
I longed to be.

And yet when I left
the thronged street and museum,
what did I find
in that hush mausoleum?

My brain’s plaintive queries, its
worries uncowed–
My soul’s jigs and jags, its
plinked rags bow-wowed–

Better to live as a
subway sardine
where all I need fear is
a tightly-groped spleen–
So much better by far
to squeeze into a cram
of something besides my
I-think and I-am.

So let me retrieve please
my space in the crowd,
where I can live free,
no matter thoughts loud.

************************

A very very tired Manicddaily is posting the above ditty for dVerse Poets Pub’s Meeting The Bar challenge to write about a moment of solitude. I’m not sure if “golf-tatting” is a word, but I do know that anyone golf-tatting is bound to be wearing plaid pants.