Nagging Life

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

“laugh and go” ~ “I Meant to Do My Work Today,” Richard Le Gallienne

Life feels the force of fact and right behind

It follows fantasy.  The dishes need

Some Fairy Liquid but his daydream mind

Redraws his day.  The tedium will speed

Him into rainbows or perhaps to storms

That rip off roofs since anything that beats

The boredom gives a drug-like smile.  The forms

Of orchids or the fragrance of the sheets

Of Cleopatra sneak inside his brain

Where marking for his classes tries to kill

His moment.  He will turn this Tuesday stain

To daydream drifting off.  He has that skill.

  He twists to reveries.  Mere life can nag

    Away.  Its importunities can sag.

Rchard Le Galienne died the year before I was born.