State Of Dreariness Poem by Margaret Alice Second

There'll always be pleasure in your mind, a guru claimed,
yet some people have so little left, we need hallucination
& escapism to fill in the pleasure deficit; today I'm calling
on Mozart to fill in the blanks in my empty mind as I swing

between the black outlines of reality, no colour & texture to
give meaning to what is happening with me as protagonist
lonely in the office with just a boring list, no company, no-
body to banter with, to listen as I grumble about existence

Marie Antoinette permanently on the war-path so that the
friendly pastor's wife can't be her kind self - the sword of
separation's poised above my head as the fairy Sonnekus,
kissed by the sun, is leaving in July and I shall be left with

the querulous Queen and Hermien, already March & the
autumn cool in morning and noon brings nostalgia even
before the sad event and the sheen of sadness forms a
soft covering over everything, the world seems bleak &

unforgiving & happiness so fleeting, it seems a sacrilege
to give in to joy - and being cheerful to jolly people along
seems a charade offering the only respite from an inner
state of dreariness…