"The Ant & the Grasshopper" ( B i j i j o o )
The world is a pretty nice place to be born in,
if you donāt mind happiness
which isnāt always
all that fun
if you donāt mind a bit of hell
here and there
right when everything is going well
because even in paradise
itās not like they sing
all the time.
The world is a pretty nice place
to be born in
if you donāt mind the people who die
continuously
just hungry
for a while
which then hurts half as much
if itās not about you.
Oh, the world is a pretty nice place
to be born in
if youāre not too worried
about some dead brain
up in command positions
or a bomb or two
now and then
against your turned faces
or such setbacks
to which our
Great Brand society
is subject
with its outstanding men
and its extinguishing men
and its priests
and other henchmen
and with the various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other stuffy blockages
that are the heritage
of our demented flesh.
Yes, the world is the most beautiful place in the world
for a lot of things like
miming the farce
and miming love
and miming sadness
and singing softly about love and having inspirations
and wandering around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
touching the butts of statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies while wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going to bathe in rivers
having picnics
in the height of summer
or just generally
"enjoying life"
Yes
but then right in the middle of it all
comes the smiling
undertaker.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
