Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Special Edition on Humour June 2024.
Come all ye litigants…, poem by John Carey.
Come all ye litigants…
It’s your right to be blissfully happy and your duty too.
So subject each moment of contentment to the closest scrutiny
to see if it measures up. If it doesn’t, find someone to sue:
unlovable neighbours, uncivil authorities, mutinous
partners, travel agents, jewellers, doctors, as a last resort,
God. At least be noticed. Drag someone through the courts.
Don’t even go to the toilet without your lawyer
like at school when you hired the biggest bully
to out-bully the other bullies. The first step
is to admit you’re powerless before fate and seek
professional help. Happiness shared is happiness gained:
fifty-fifty (or in practice, twenty-eighty.)
© John Carey
John Carey was a Sydney poet who had six collections published, the last being “Dead Cat Bounce” (Puncher & Wattmann 2021). He enjoyed writing playful humorous and satirical poems (often best heard in his own voice) as well as writing lyrical and personal poems.