Distractions, distractions, EVERYWHERE!
I'd like to do chemistry but I just don't care!
Look, a balloon, floating in the sky
Succeeded by raindrops and that quirky little guy
Who walks on the path to boredom's demise
With happy-go-lucky burning in his eyes!
But Wait! Oh no! What's this I see?
Grass and flowers marching happily to me!
Dandelion seeds, blowing in the breeze
Nickel-coated coins and the day they'll seize!
Pretty pansy petals with ponies on rainbows
Watching us below and seeing how the grass grows
FAST. SLOW. Too much to mow!
I won't do it, mother, there's so much to go!
There's more to life than conquering foe
Or reading those books that no will know
In a century later when everything has changed
So now I'll contemplate how archers are ranged
Or sorcerors cast their magic in the sky
Which doesn't matter much unless you're a guy
Who wastes his time on trivial things
Like hunting down harpies and selling their wings
In his alternate world, another reality
Full of pure red gore, graphic bestiality.
Onward they go, those scholars who
learn!
Pish-posh I say, I'd rather not yearn
For the sweet understanding and omnipotence
Of reading and working and jumping that fence
Of youth, immaturity and ignorant bliss
Where horrors and troubles we surely will miss
In our happy happy sunny singing day after day
Like Kindergarten and tasty French Crème brûlée
With sprinkles of joy and fairy tale lands
Without the silly fairies (too many cooties on their hands!)
Where life was simple and everyone was nice
And where worlds weren't shattered by corpulent vice.
But even as a happy child I thought something I lacked,
But it musn't have been bad; as a matter of fact
I lived fine then as I do now,
Without the yoke of homework to incessantly plow.
But still I feel that something was awry
In those days when many nights I saw myself cry
Over something strange... what was it about?
A meaning for my life? A way to get out?
Maybe I see now that hopping that fence
Was a choice I made with dire consequence
In my own life and those of many others
And this cruel thought, oh how it smothers
My complaining spirit in strangest confusion
For surely I'd never leave that land of sunny illusion
With dandelion seeds, blowing in the breeze
Nickel-coated coins and the day they'll seize!
Pretty pansy petals with ponies on rainbows
Watching us below and seeing how the grass grows
FAST. SLOW. Too much to mow!
I
will do it, mother, I see why we go
To an uncertain world where lies so much pain,
But you only really lose what you refuse to gain
Where clouds often come to hide the face of Sol
But sunlight is different: that celestial ball
Of friendship, love, nostalgia and awe,
All we ever we seek-sought-thought-we-saw
In the daisies, unicorns and refractions of light
That had little meaning before this great fight,
A pilgrimage into the black, darkened world
Hoping flags of victory will soon be unfurled
But no, they'll not fly unless by my thought
That life is better now and more than just rot...
Look up the moon, which stares down at me,
Hoping, perhaps, my own face to see,
Shimmering in whitest light and purpose, alright
Is it me or the moon I'm going on about tonight?
I turn; it's day! There's a face in that tree...
A little tiny child, looking longingly at me,
Sitting by another ghost, waiting on branch
He had better be careful of impending avalanche!
No, they wouldn't see it, their eyes are so small;
They need someone strong, fatherly and tall
To protect them while they take their pleasant turn
In the land of endless butter without a butter churn,
With dandelion seeds, blowing in the breeze
Nickel-coated coins and the day they'll seize!
Pretty pansy petals with ponies on rainbows
Watching us below and seeing how the grass grows
FAST. SLOW. Too much to mow!
I'll mow it for them, let them warmly know
That they are safe, cared for and great,
Despite the work and pain that has become my fate,
So they can live in their happiest peace
Even if my own life I must put on lease
To see them in purple jackets, playing in the snow
A woman laughing by my side; she's married, I know,
But wait, the ring she wears strikes my memory;
I look down to see that very one, clinging onto me!
I look inside a window to see our Christmas tree,
They run in my direction and call me their "Daddy!"
"No, little children," they must be wrong! I melt,
Seeing little tiny hands, pulling on my belt.
What is this, this strange, alternate reality,
Without the pure red gore, graphic bestiality?
If those things exist, though in darkness, yes, they may,
Sunlight's immortal rays do them entirely outweigh.
I work from dawn to dusk and sleep not 'til it's done,
But it seems the battle over work long ago was won
Though unrealized in pessimism's many, heavy chains,
The blessings of these times are worth the cruelest pains.
I light the birthday candles, kiss the wife goodnight,
Confident the darkness of the world is out of sight,
For though we cry at many times,
Some cord within us rhymes,
As I take those ghosts to the park to play,
Where I had gone with friends, one may.
Collecting shells with daughters, see,
And running with sons for one small fee:
I paid my pessimism to the Maker of it all,
Walked many days down a long, demanding haul,
Gave two years of my life for eternity's rewards,
Tried everything to pay back all my debts to the land lords,
And here I find more than I sought, more than ever before I had,
More than all the wealth of joy and bliss when life was never sad.
The ghosts fade and I find the pencil in my hand,
Homework sitting on my lap in that
other, painful land.
It was all a dream, a prophecy, for what I'll later have,
If I just do this now and toss away procrastination's stave.
My thought were turned, I stared out the door,
Thinking now I prefer the future to what I had before,
No matter how uncertain it very well could be,
I saw in it a brighter light than I ever once did see:
Dandelion seeds, blowing in the breeze
Nickel-coated coins and the day they'll seize!
Pretty pansy petals with ponies on rainbows
Watching us below and seeing how the grass grows
FAST. SLOW. Too much to mow!
That's just fine, onward I'll go,
For Daddy-me calls unicorns by another name,
And sees dandelion seeds as pretty just the same
When they fall from the hair on a loved one's head,
Granting all the wishes made that to this point have led
A working and resentful boy to see more than just the dark
That in a world of greater light can barely leave a mark.
The sun does not travel from merely East to West,
But rises in a thousand faces that try to do their best.
He picked up a pen and wrote on weak acetic acid,
Thinking how this study place really is quite placid.
Out the window he sees daffodils, people in the sun,
But finds the image in his mind of what he will have won,
When work is greater but means so much more,
When you see your
child for the first time snore.
Dandelion seeds, blowing in the breeze
Nickel-coated coins and the day they'll seize!
Pretty pansy petals with ponies on rainbows
Watching us below and seeing how the grass grows
FAST. SLOW. Too much to mow!
This life is wonderful; that's all I know.
