Life is a problem. This is what our dramatic literature says.
Speak to the painter, who solves perspective, or the architect,
who uses all things to make your life comfortable.
Screw the poet, even if his poems are beautiful.
Who needs literature’s sorrowful moral?
Layers of paint and tall walls
own the light and the dazzling falls
where you and I dance at the party.
Life’s only problem is blubbering poetry.
Life is a problem. It rushes downhill
and everything—and yet nothing—depends on your will.
The Rolling Stones are happy when the song ends.
When the concert is finished they can go home to bed
and enjoy the money the record producer sends.
The poet and the lively poem couldn’t be more dead.
The temporal is a trap. The tap tap tapping ends.
The business of the Rolling Stones ended well, it is true.
But then things end for them and you.
Life is a problem. Build, then, a tomb
for your lovers, your family, the raccoon
you loved, who made you sick.
The architect out in the hall says there’s plenty of room.