it was again as expected;
an oft-repeated act of monotony
which often begin in the familiar note
and gives one the predicted surprises.
one would rather say
it was like one sending oneself
a card or remembrance or surprise-
say- a birthday or valentines day card.

like, of course,
the lonely man out there in the cartoons'
yea you got it!
the same man who makes
himself an object of his own sarcasm
and laughs at himself,

the one
who invents surprises to wake in to.
yea he is true, it seems,
one needs to invent pleasures

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

************************************
by Robert Hayden

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/robert_hayden/poems/4406

loneliness

then i asked Almustafa, "speak about loneliness"
with a trembling voice he replied:
loneliness is when you become the only question to many answers,
the answers keep changing and the question remains the same.