All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Who has never been there, all dressed up and nowhere to go, making-believe we’ll have just as  good time staying in on our own, and who’s lonely anyway…?

Too right, it’s not a good place to be. (Most if not all of  us have been or will go there at some time or another in this life.)

So...?  Be positive. Find yourself a kinder place to be, and don't waste time thinking about it. Better, surely, to enter into the process of building self-confidence than pressing self-destruct?  If human relationships are a minefield, the trick is learning to avoid the mines not the relationships. (Did I say it would be easy?)

By the way ...

If there is anyone more boring than a whinger, it has to be a troll; to those well-meaning readers who suggest I promote my poetry on social media, I can only say I left it in the first place because of trolls and have no intention of returning. [I ignore trolls, of course, and some still email me from time to time, but they unimaginative to the point of being boring, and life is too precious to waste being bored.]

https://rogertab.blogspot.com  (General)

https://aspectsofagaymanslifeinverse.blogspot.com/ Gay-interest)

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html (Fiction)

ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO 

Tables in a room, Happy Hour,

forced laughter booming like canon

across no man’s land;

lots of food and drink so let’s not think

about tomorrow, mind

the remains of a Here and Now  

flying past in the wind

Singing along to the radio man

(sure to cheer us up if anyone can?)

while old gods tease us

about the rights and wrongs of strings

we pull on those of us 

left banging on doors, crying to be

let in for pity’s sake

Dreams, footprints left by chairs

across a floor, toys seen better days,

their owners never (quite)

grown out of old inhibitions or found

better ways to spend an evening

than with life fictions sure to cut us

to the quick

There's a whole world out there 

waiting to be discovered, people too,

who need someone to share lives

that haven't measured up to expectation,

thereby stifling earlier aspirations;
Yes, time to get real, and no, it's never

too late ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 1997; rev. 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem under the same title 'first appeared in poetry magazines (Community of Poets, 5, 1995 and Reach, 5, 1997) before I included it in  Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2001.]