A writing group that I was and still am a member of based in Port Macquarie is not too far off having a book of our stories and poems published - (self published of course - we're not that good yet) -  I put in mainly stories as I don't really know all the "rules" about writing poetry - but do it anyway...

I was talking with my eldest sister this morning about what we could and couldn't handle in people the most - and we agreed that pretentious people was a pet hate - amongst others as well a few likes - 

I am putting this poem in the book because it describes  how I feel about pretension (sometimes my own!) protocol - Its a simple work but I like it better than some of the others that took much more effort.

Laughter.

 At times when everything seems so deadly serious,

and small things grow to assume such a great importance,

and the things of this life are so solidly in your face -

you forget that there are other lives out there

than the one you are so deadly in earnest about...

When we all sit about, talking all our nothings

with such gravity -

A part of me seems to separate with a life I have no control of...

and sets up a smirky smile, a chuckle needing to be hidden,

a belly laugh trying hard not to take over . . .

My child face round and clear twinkles with devilment

seeing the ridiculousness I am in danger of succumbing to.

“We must not laugh at funerals, Therese.

Nor at Premiers and Prime Ministers - not to their faces anyway -

We must not roll our eyes at protocol,

Nor at pretentious prattling mawkish six month ‘pastors’

who try to save us from ourselves.

It does not do to stand with hands on hips...as if about to charge

nor is it done to mimic land developers and councillors

who play the game so well.

And Therese, just because the doctor walks like he’s got

a broom lodged up his bottom,

doesn’t mean its okay to imitate him behind his back,

when you think he isn’t looking...”

At these times I am reminded of who I really am,

Accepting that the saying that “God laughs in flowers’

mightn’t always fill my garden with the prettiest of flowers...

And I much rather the rough child that runs inside me

laughing in the sunshine - digging me in the ribs

as I try to keep it straight - roaring out “HAW HAW HAW”

in great belly laughs that make your sides ache.

To only laugh when others think its funny and correct

in a world becoming too respectable, serious and full of pretension...

amongst hidden cruelties, affectation, pomposity and stuffiness,

means too bloody long between laughs for me.