When I think of the moon, I think of rocks not cheese.
Thank you, technology! The headline read, “Astronauts give up.”
A statement or a command? I swear it’s easier to imagine
Changing the world than it is to actually change my socks.
But that’s the inertia associated with modern ennui.
Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m filled with ennui,
I go home and wait for the deliberate erasure of nighttime
To arrive in my room while I sort my dirty socks,
Which makes me think of a particular kind of cheese,
The name of which I can’t remember, and I give up.
That I, or any of us, might eat such a thing is hard to imagine.
Is that enough? To be limited to the life of the mind? I imagine
To such a man there is nothing except the slow dissolve to ennui.
A man who pronounces the word en-you-I, too lazy to look it up.
To this man there is no more to the world than the passing of time.
He sees himself as one who wears unpolished shoes and threadbare socks
And not much more. A man so bored he dreams not of sex but cheese.
But there is more to me than a prurient interest in cheese.
I’m not that man. I have more to do than sit around and imagine
A life that transcends my own. When it’s clearly time, I buy new socks.
I have access to 70 channels to keep me free from ennui.
And I’ve been known to consult the OED to kill some time,
Defining obscure words of dubious origin I felt obliged to look up.
Sometimes at night, I can’t sleep; I get out of bed and look up
And wonder why anyone ever thought the moon was made of cheese
And what it would be like to live in a dimension without time.
Then I convince myself it’s better not to think, not to imagine,
Since it’s thoughts like these that lead a man toward a ceaseless ennui.
Resolved, I search my dresser drawers for sewing kit and salvageable socks.
Then I think, “Is it possible to have too many socks?”
Can I possibly expect those I wish to impress to look up
To me when I spend so many hours trying in vain to avoid ennui?
That’s when I give in to an overwhelming desire to eat some cheese.
I gather my needle and thread, my thinning socks, as I imagine
How good it will taste to eat a snack and waste some time.
And now it’s truly nighttime, the time of darning socks,
Of standing up in the kitchen, nibbling waxy cheese.
A more satisfying ennui I can’t begin to imagine.