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 of 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

                                           

^{for Kojo}

There is the fickle shadow, the dialect 
of my body; me standing before myself—  
as if the framing of this ordinary mirror,  
is the small light of a window, 
and see this naked man, no longer shy,  
move me with the muscle 
of thighs and the flattery of shoulders—  
this is a kind of art; perhaps 
the only art there is, my body 
still able to seduce me to tenderness.

My calculus of pleasure or contentment 
is the way my older self, 
that brother of mine who faced 
the wars, four years ahead, 
the blasted sight, the kidneys’ 
decay, the atrophy of bone in his 
spine. To think I found comfort  
in the slow calculation. He was 
broken long before, and I have survived 
another curse. This is as ugly 
as all love can be. And, so, I give 
thanks for this body walking 
towards the trees, away from me 
the machine of me, my backside 
a revelation.