Evening on Karl Johan Street, 1892, by Charlie Brice

Evening on Karl Johan Street, by Edvard Munch (Norway) 1892

Evening on Karl Johan Street, 1892

We had such a good time.
We must have a good time.
We were supposed to enjoy ourselves.
We were told to enjoy ourselves,
and we did. Yes, we did.
We enjoyed ourselves because
we must enjoy ourselves.
Life is about happiness,
and we are happy.
We must be happy.
It is our duty. 
Joy has brought us together.
We are together
marching towards bliss
because we must.

One man
alone
walks past us.
He is not happy.
He is not one of us.
He is going nowhere.
We shun him 
because we must.

​Charlie Brice

​Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Pinnacles of Hope (Impspired Books, 2022). His poetry has been nominated three times for both the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere.