Lemmings
So, you’ve got a few things going on. Number one
You’re breathing every day, that’s a no brainer.
Then you’ve got to feed like any other creature,
But we’ve come quite far since nuts and berries;
Now you’ve got the option of a three-course meal
In most emporiums, more in other slightly more
Expensive venues. Fundamentally the issue here is
Money. You will absolutely need this if you wish
To offer any kind of bonus to the species. Other
People will look down on you if you don’t have it
From the highest window of the tallest buildings.
All the rest- nice hair, kind smile, keen sense
Of fashion, marriage to a person you can count on-
Pales in triviality compared to what your
Share is in the central gold reserve, your stake
Within decision-making circles, basically.
Reality costs more than you’d have thought, so those
Before us made up stuff, like God, to calm us,
Hold our hands through harm, or so it seemed
Until society resolved to steal the soul as well.
Science sort of undermined Him, fair to say-
Though some still clutch the wreckage of a former,
Simpler dogma, surging cohorts scorn religion as
A cruel, coercive force that rules through fear
And nothing more. For if He loved us, why
The fuck? And suffering, you know? Because,
I mean, that’s what we do, and not just those that
Starve but those that think and that’s by far the most.
If real, God is some kind of prick, I feel. More
Likely, though, than His existence is that primal
Instinct not to be alone intoned us find someone
To bind us while we sleep and keep us safe,
Like Mummy did when we had tummy-aches
And Daddy told us jokes to make us happy.
Parents, whether single or in pairs, invincibly
Prepare us for the long and tense decline
(Or so they’re meant to. Sometimes, they are mental
And dispense incurable defections of the mind,
The kind that tempt twelve lines from Larkin or
That Freud might write a work on, like a person
Who eats bricks and gets a kick, or cooks a child,
Or was so scarred by a divorce he murders whores
And scores their corpses [unremorsefully, of course.])
So, anyway, so Love is quite important,
Sex is too if you want fun or to invent someone.
What else? Well, since, I guess, it all ends when
You die, just stay alive as long as possible, I’d say;
Don’t cross the road unless you’ve looked both ways
Or any crazy shit like that, don’t, I don’t know,
Don’t pick a fight with anyone who’s bigger
Than you, or got better hands, unless you’re really
Angry and no longer care in which case, yeah.
Also: when the time comes, when it goes, when
Light begins to hum and all you see is noise,
Try becoming, instantly and honestly, somehow
The sum of now and all that led there, what you thought
And were, and did, so when it stops (which will be,
I imagine, or will almost be a shock) you’ve got your
Mind concerned with unimportant things and won’t be
Paying much attention if the closing moment stings.
So, you’ve got a few things going on. Number one
You’re breathing every day, that’s a no brainer.
Then you’ve got to feed like any other creature,
But we’ve come quite far since nuts and berries;
Now you’ve got the option of a three-course meal
In most emporiums, more in other slightly more
Expensive venues. Fundamentally the issue here is
Money. You will absolutely need this if you wish
To offer any kind of bonus to the species. Other
People will look down on you if you don’t have it
From the highest window of the tallest buildings.
All the rest- nice hair, kind smile, keen sense
Of fashion, marriage to a person you can count on-
Pales in triviality compared to what your
Share is in the central gold reserve, your stake
Within decision-making circles, basically.
Reality costs more than you’d have thought, so those
Before us made up stuff, like God, to calm us,
Hold our hands through harm, or so it seemed
Until society resolved to steal the soul as well.
Science sort of undermined Him, fair to say-
Though some still clutch the wreckage of a former,
Simpler dogma, surging cohorts scorn religion as
A cruel, coercive force that rules through fear
And nothing more. For if He loved us, why
The fuck? And suffering, you know? Because,
I mean, that’s what we do, and not just those that
Starve but those that think and that’s by far the most.
If real, God is some kind of prick, I feel. More
Likely, though, than His existence is that primal
Instinct not to be alone intoned us find someone
To bind us while we sleep and keep us safe,
Like Mummy did when we had tummy-aches
And Daddy told us jokes to make us happy.
Parents, whether single or in pairs, invincibly
Prepare us for the long and tense decline
(Or so they’re meant to. Sometimes, they are mental
And dispense incurable defections of the mind,
The kind that tempt twelve lines from Larkin or
That Freud might write a work on, like a person
Who eats bricks and gets a kick, or cooks a child,
Or was so scarred by a divorce he murders whores
And scores their corpses [unremorsefully, of course.])
So, anyway, so Love is quite important,
Sex is too if you want fun or to invent someone.
What else? Well, since, I guess, it all ends when
You die, just stay alive as long as possible, I’d say;
Don’t cross the road unless you’ve looked both ways
Or any crazy shit like that, don’t, I don’t know,
Don’t pick a fight with anyone who’s bigger
Than you, or got better hands, unless you’re really
Angry and no longer care in which case, yeah.
Also: when the time comes, when it goes, when
Light begins to hum and all you see is noise,
Try becoming, instantly and honestly, somehow
The sum of now and all that led there, what you thought
And were, and did, so when it stops (which will be,
I imagine, or will almost be a shock) you’ve got your
Mind concerned with unimportant things and won’t be
Paying much attention if the closing moment stings.