lirik lagu john ashbery - my philosophy of life
just when i thought there wasn’t room enough
for another thought in my head, i had this great idea—
call it a philosophy of life, if you will. briefly
it involved living the way philosophers live
according to a set of principles. ok, but which ones?
that was the hardest part, i admit, but i had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like
everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom
or just standing on a subway platform, lost in thought
for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests
would be affected, or more precisely, inflected
by my new attitude. i wouldn’t bе preachy
or worry about children and old peoplе, except
in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe
instead i’d sort of let things be what they are
while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate
i thought i’d stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions
at once a fragrance overwhelms him—not saffron, not lavender
but something in between. he thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle’s boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him
quizzically, pointed ear~tips folded over. and then the great rush
is on. not a single idea emerges from it. it’s enough
to disgust you with thought. but then you remember something
william james
wrote in some book of his you never read—it was fine, it had the
fineness
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone
it’s fine, in summer, to visit the seashore
there are lots of little trips to be made
a grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler. nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well
messages to the world, as they sat
and thought about what they’d do after using the toilet
and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out
into the open again. had they been coaxed in by principles
and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?
i confess i can move no farther along this train of thought—
something’s blocking it. something i’m
not big enough to see over. or maybe i’m frankly scared
what was the matter with how i acted before?
but maybe i can come up with a compromise—i’ll let
things be what they are, sort of. in the autumn i’ll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well
i won’t be embarrassed by my friends’ dumb remarks
or even my own, though admittedly that’s the hardest part
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn’t even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. well he’s
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him—
this thing works both ways, you know. you can’t always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time. that would be abusive, and about as much fun
as attending the wedding of two people you don’t know
still, there’s a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas
that’s what they’re made for! now i want you to go out there
and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too
they don’t come along every day. look out! there’s a big one…
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