a coney island of the mind

'... 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 and 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'

Just the second half of '11' (roughly arranged in the way it's published, but bastardized, sorry) from the third part of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 'A Coney Island of the Mind'. I read this poem and 'Dog' in high school my sophomore year of English, and the teacher kept likening me to one of the free-r spirits Ferlinghetti likes to talk of. For example, I remember she asked 'Who here do you think would go around goosing statues?' and some people pointed and said 'Hana!'. I guess it's better that this realization was made when in high school rather than in college.