My father was moonstruck at a young age, and though he had a very whimsical soul, he also had great, almost psychic, intuition; in his handwritten journal he foretold the arrival of a dastardly entity at his club, the Comedy Fortress, who would be filled with both a nefariously melancholy demeanor and perversely righteous indignation.

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© 2023 - dustygrein

(Thank you for a great little challenge. Sometimes I create these little random word challenges in poetry, but occasionally I try and see if I can do it all in one sentence... this one worked pretty well.)

I think a lot about the lives of others. Each one is their own entity, living a life I will never know.

A melancholy feeling comes over me as I watch them. In a fortress of public life, seemingly unseen.

Sometimes as I sit, people watching, I create whimsical or dastardly stories for each of them.

Maybe they are moonstruck, racing off to a dinner where their sweetheart will get down on one knee.

Or maybe they stomp along, drenched with indignation, furious about a foretold down-size at their job.

Are they righteous, kind, a mother, a criminal?

Sometimes I'm sure my intuition is off, or maybe my imagination and natural comedy is taking over.

But I enjoy these moments. They make me wonder what people guess about my own life.

I had a bit of a melancholy moment, almost whimsical. Most that know me may think my thought was righteous.

But here I sit, mt place of solitude, which I often call my Fortress of Quiet Land.

And yet, I cannot but help remember what my grandfather foretold when I was a young sapling.

“Let your intuition be your guide. Don’t fritter your time away uselessly and become a moonstruck idiot just because something went your way for a change. Keep after that you feel important. Remember, you are your own entity. No one can distract you from what you set out to accomplish but you. You may get a certain number of people that will try to eviscerate you, laying out their unholiest indignation upon you. I say bastardly dastardly and let them wallow in their own ilk. They know nothing of what you will bring. So smile politely, nod your head, and ruin their brain waves with a bit of comedy. Comedy works like kindness. They have no comeback.”

And tomorrow I will put the naysayers in their own quiet land when I become the first blind man to ski downhill backward singing Ava Maria eating a liverwurst sandwich.