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I Never Do a Happy Dance

I never do a happy dance,
Or look online to find romance,
Speak my sentences upended,
Or keep saying I’m offended,
Check my email every hour,
Never seeing tree or flower,
Drink my coffee on the run,
Keep myself out of the sun.
I still look to a garden nook,
Where I can sit and hold a book,
And hear the thoughts that come to me
Uncrushed by people on TV.
Am I too cold? Am I too old?
_I think I will say, “No.”
For it is bold, for it is gold
_To lead where you will go.

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Lisa Marie Miller is an English Professor at Pace University (NYC). Her poems have been published in the American Collegiate Poets anthologies and also in The Breakthrough Intercessor.

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8 Responses

  1. jd

    Love the title to begin with but the rest of the poem, also. It’s another artful comment on the times. “Upended sentences” are one of my pet peeves today. Even people who should know better use them.

    Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Your precious poem with peaceful pursuits is for those living life to the fullest. A garden nook and reading a book says a lot about the soul seeking wisdom, knowledge, and serenity in a world gone mad. There is so much more to life than the internet and vain pursuits.

    Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi

    Gardens — places where raw nature is whipped into proper shape by human design and arrangement — have always been seen as expressions of our desire for peace, harmony, rest, and untroubled thought. Being in a well-tended garden, relaxing and talking with good friends while sipping fine wine, is a kind of paradise. And the word “paradise” itself means a walled garden.

    I’d like to mention one other thing. The line “Speak my sentences upended” refers (I believe) to the insufferable habit of stupid undergraduates to finish every comment they make with a rising interrogatory tone, as if they were news reporters interviewing someone. It’s maddening, and even older persons who should know better are picking up the horrid practice. When someone speaks in this way to me, I want to answer “Are you SAYING something, or are you just whining?”

    It’s part of the current Zeitgeist, where no one is allowed to make a straightforward, unambiguous comment.

    Reply
  5. Paul A. Freeman

    Nicely said, Lisa. Today I’ve been for a walk (phone turned off), drunk coffee in a cafe done out like a traditional pub (my nook due to the hot weather), written a poem and a bit (longhand in my almost filled notebook) and finished off reading an old hardback book that weighs a ton.

    All these little pleasures in life seem to be going the way of the dinosaur (or the much maligned dodo).

    Thanks for the read.

    Reply
  6. Margaret Coats

    You must have known, Lisa Marie, how many others are also offended (slightly, for a moment, and without the need to say so) by practices you describe in the first half of this entertaining poem. Satisfactory entertainment appears in the second half, along with trees, flowers, coffee, and sunshine neglected in the first–but most important is the surprise appearance in the final line of “you” who leads you there. A clever device to indicate how loving personal interaction surpasses both the shallowness and the depth of pleasures experienced by an individual.

    Reply
  7. Morrison Handley-Schachler

    An excellent sentiment, Lisa, and very well expressed. Many of us, myself included, spend far too much time inviting everyone and their robot dog on the internet to fill our heads with pointless distractions, instead of taking time to observe and reflect.

    Reply
  8. Isabella

    A beautiful poem! The line “uncrushed by people on TV” speaks volumes as the world (particularly the online world) does seem a very crushing place these days.

    Reply

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