POETRY | Lawrence Ferlinghetti : #11

#11

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti

from the collection “A Coney Island of the Mind”

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

comes the smiling

mortician