Another Fine Journey

[Le jour se lève, moi dans mon lit, les hirondelles matinales frôlant bruyamment la fenêtre ouverte etc. Suit une description détaillée dudit jour qui se lève, mais certainement vu de mon pieu.]

Your odds of arriving safely are
In the low one-digit ballpark, he said.
But I didn’t make any bet, I said;
And furthermore, see, I’m on no journey.
Sure you did, sure you are, he answered.
You won’t linger all along anyhow.
Felt him sort of crack down on prostrated me.
You are on a travel fraught with peril, he said;
Thy hope is blind, thy luck is skewed
So let’s face it: the fare is fairly too high.
I simply try to keep staying abed, I said.
The odds are against it, quoth he.

Is there still a thrill in going places, or
Even a bit of an urge to shift elsewhere
For the one au jus used to the usual? He
Doesn’t hold that things how they are are
Unbearable and that one’s got to get out of it
That anybed is better than this one, any future
Is a gas--he is neither too bored nor too yearning
Yet insidiously he moves, the odds stack up this way.
That’s why this buzzer did threaten me, I guess.

[Créature de luxe qui risque, bêtement, sa vie pour un exploit. Celui qui connaît les aléas de la vie, l’esquimau dans le vrai quoi, n’est ni assez fortuné ni assez ennuyé pour se permettre ce sport de riche qu’est la tentative de suicide ; lui, du bête et du périlleux, il l’a à la pelle et à l’œil. L’esquimau n’a qu’à rester dans son milieu hostile, et c’est tout.]

July 14, 2009