"The world is a beautiful place"

                 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

 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind (New Directions Press, 1955)