February 2: #11

[February Feels Like]

The world is a beautiful place

     to be born into

if you don't mind happiness

     not always being

          so very much fun

if you don't mind a touch of hell

          now and then

     just when everything is fine

          because even in heaven

     they don't sing

          all the time

The world is a beautiful place

          to be born into

if you don't mind some people dying

          all the time

     or maybe only starving

          some of the time

     which isn't half so bad

          if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place

               to be born into

if you don't much mind

          a few dead minds

     in the higher places

          or a bomb or two

     now and then

          in your upturned faces

or such other improprieties

               as our Name Brand society

          is prey to 

          with its men of distinction

and its men of extinction

          and its priests 

     and other patrolmen

                    and its various segregations

and congressional investigations

               and other constipations

that our fool flesh 

                    is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all

               for a lot of such things as

making the fun scene

          and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

               and singing low songs and having inspirations

and walking around

     looking at everything

          and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

     and even thinking 

          and kissing people and

making babies and wearing pants 

          and waving hats and

     dancing

          and going swimming in rivers

on picnics

     in the middle of the summer

and just generally

          'living it up'

Yes

but then right in the middle of it

               come the smiling

          mortician

---

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pictures of the Gone World (1955)