What do normal people do?
I’ve seen them clean their cars
and cut the grass.
I think they watch TV
and talk about the weather.
I wonder if they ever
wonder what they’re doing here?
Or if they are content
just being normal.
Where do normal people go?
They go to work
in some countries
they go to church, or synagogue
or mosque:
whatever’s normal
in the country
where they are.
Do they ever stop to wonder what’s afar?
Do they live their lives hiding from what they fear?
Normal people
distrust strangers
like convention
follow rules
spy on the neighbours
gossip often:
poor dull fools!
I wake up every morning with a prayer
upon my lips, Dear
God, thank you
with all my heart
that you saw fit
to make me anything
but normal.
© 2021 experimentsinfiction.com. All Rights Reserved.
Sharing with dVerse
Tonight it’s Open Link Night (Live Edition) at dVerse Poet’s Pub. Join us to share a poem and give a reading! Lets celebrate dVersity…
Yeah – I like you the way you are, Ingrid 🙂
<3
David
David ❤️
Amen to that!
😉
Ditto! This reminded me of the song Guinevere sings in the Camelot musical, “What Do Simple Folk Do?”
Pax,
Dora
That kind of thing! Thanks Dora 😊
Yup, anything but normal, anyday!❤️
🙏❤️
How I hear you, Ingrid! I am proud to be different.
Me too 😊
Most of us, as artists and poets are muckrakers and loose cannons, anything but normal. We seek out chaos if it does not touch us often enough.
Agree 100%
Stunning..and some lines really ring true…of that distrust, and gossip. I should say unbearably true, actually. Enjoyed hearing it read live.
Thanks Ain
Yes, so much, Ingrid! I think “normal” must be boring.
I loved hearing your Wordsworth poem at OLN.
Thanks Merril. I’ll be doing a post about the Wordsworth experience: it was special 😊
💙
Bloody hell who would want to be normal?
Exactly 😱
I think truly creative people are rarely normal! 😅 Great write!
I think you may be right, Tricia!
I too am far from “normal” instead I consider myself an old soul with lots of experiences in life. Great piece Ingrid. ❤️
And that is a great thing to be, Joni ❤️
Creatives and Normals are two quite different beasties. Glad you are in the creative camp, dear Ingrid.
I feel lots of pressure from some sides to be normal since I came home. But then what would have been the point of all my adventures?
Exactly! And I think it was your creative spirit that led you to look beyond “the well.” (can’t remember the story but it’s about some critters in a well and one decides to leave it and explore the world.)
Ingird, I appreciate the inquiry posed by your poem. Whatever is normal depends on where you are standing and what lens you have chosen to look through, unless you just want to be told what to think.
I think you and I could have some wonderful discussions involving more questions than answers. (I love that kind of conversation.) Thanks for bringing your words out into the light today.
Ali
Oh, I love those conversations too, Ali. Thank you for your kind comment!
Just the way you are is fine! (K)
Thank you!
Love it! Right away I thought of Camelot “What do the simple folk do?”
😊 thanks Mary!
I think like that too. But I’m not always convinced it’s true. I’m not always convinced that there is a “normal” person. I wonder if society made them up … another generalisation. Another handy box. But we’ve moved our kids to a more alternative school this year and I have to say… I feel much more at home there than I did at the local public school. So maybe, at least, I can say that some people refuse to accept the limitations of “normal” more openly than others.
I suppose by ‘normal’, I mean ‘conventional’. Glad your kids are enjoying the new school!
Every now and then through my life, I would decide that I was going to try to blend. I never fooled anyone. Thank you for an anthem to us weirdos!
I’ve tried it a few times and it just didn’t work out!
If I prayed Ingrid, I would definitely have found a new prayer here in your piece. I have never found anyone/anything to pray to. Creating my art, writing my words — in that deep concentration and release of temporal awareness, at wander in space and time, lost in the pulse of wilderness… therein I find my essence of prayer. I have never been accused of being normal — and isn’t that wonderful for both of us.
Poetry is my answered prayer, Rob! I find God in the words, or the spaces between them. But we each have our own spiritual journey. So glad neither of us can be accused of being normal!
I loved this poem, Ingrid, especially the final line. Normal is stultifying! The older I get, the happier I am to not “fit in” with normal people! <3 Take care.
I am glad to hear it, Cheryl! Stay wonderful ❤️
So agreed. Three cheers for abnormality. 🙂
Hurrah! 😊
Anything but normal indeed! You are anything but normal it the best possible way! Your energy and creativity bring joy to all of us. I love your poem.
Thank you Dwight: this comment made my day 😊
:>)
Today at vaccination centre I came across a woman abnormal she was frightened😰 to get vaccinated, I explain her but in vein,
Some people fear what they don’t understand.
Some people need counseling i think,
” We are normal and we want our freedom
We are normal and we dig Burt Weedon ”
the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band said it all !! great poem.
🤣 thanks!
Normally I’d comment, but…
😅
Wonderful stuff. I’m glad you’re not normal too
Thanks Suzanne 😊
Okay so you want to define your own normal.
Like a pandemic perhaps 😊
Covid 19 has given us normal folks a new normal. All good.
I enjoyed reading your poem and your appreciation of self rising out of the “doldrums”
Much💜love
Normalcy is highly over-rated, I find. And its the normal people who walk us all into things we’d be better off without. Your poem made me think of the Poe line, “There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.”
Thank you 😊
Thanks for sharing, Ingrid. Sorry I couldn’t be there to hear it. Maybe next year.
Next year is not too far!
Lovely to see and hear you read, Ingrid! I hope you have a great festive period in the UK while you’re here and hope Boris the bungling bear doesn’t upset you too much 😀 <3
Bloody Bungling Boris! Can’t he bog off already?
😂 I think he might soon!
This is incredibly heartfelt and poignant, Ingrid! 💝💝 And yes, normalcy is overrated. 😉
Thank you Sanaa 💕
Oh, I love this!❤
Thank you Ishita! ❤️
Normal can be boring 😧 I’m going to start calling you Abby Normal 🤣 (from Young Frankenstein)
🤣 I love that movie!
This is a distinctively memorable poem. I loved the questions posed, sound like making a point and then opening up a discussion about it with the reader, a psychological reasoning as they read the poem. You write well dear, so charming. Keep up the good work. Poetry on another level. 💖💥💐
I wonder if there really are any normal people… but for sure there is a lot of conventions that tie people down… This made me think of “Little Boxes”
Thank you Björn! I think it is a case of conventional rather than normal…
Everyone is unique in there own way
That’s true!
amen sister! You’ve said what I’ve thought so often so well. Call me anything but ‘normal’ or ‘nice’ … 🙂
I wouldn’t dream of it 😅
just as well kind friend 🙂
So you are abnormal? That’s the antonym of normal 😜
Proud to be! 🤣
I am too lol. No wait. It depends on what and how you define normal. I think I’m normal but I the eyes of the conservative I wouldn’t be 🤔 So what is actually being normal? What is the threshold? Or where is the line between normal and not like weird. But I guess you meant normal as in common? Sorry to overphilosophy you 🙈
I meant ‘conventional,’ I suppose…