[NicknamedBob]

I Wouldn’t Choose...

I wouldn’t choose to be struck blind,
Though some, they say, don’t seem to mind.
They get around quite well, as yet,
But it’s really tough in the Internet.

I don’t think deaf I’d like to be,
My life would shrink in quality.
I’d be imprisoned in my mind,
Especially if I were also blind.

I’d hate to have my limbs go down,
And not be free to wander ‘round.
Stumbling into things, I guess,
Let’s face it. I would be a mess.

And if, somehow I lost my voice,
I guess I’d type. I’d have no choice,
Unless my fingers didn’t fling,
Ah, then I’d be a hopeless thing.

If all these ailments struck at me,
I’d then depend on charity.
And on the ones who like to say,
“No one would want to live this way.”

With deafened ears, I’d hear them tell,
“His life’s become a Living Hell,
He’s little more than just a slug,
I think we ought to pull the plug.”

What in their past gives them the sight,
To know for me it would be right,
Though I lay chained, and bound, and fettered,
That in Dead Hell I would be bettered?

Could they perchance, know of this place,
Because they’re of a “different” Race?
A race of Demons sent to sell,
A tourist trap that they call Hell.


NicknamedBob . . . March 31, 2005

[Tax-chick]

Wow. The last stanza, though, seems a little opaque.

[Tax-chick]

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

(From "Ode to a Nightingale," by John Keats)

[Conspiracy Guy]

Well said.