Sick Reverie

---

I’d given it a lot of thought 

Weighed the pros and cons

Consulted the oracle living in my head

Prayed to gods both living and dead that

Next 

time 

  around

When lots are drawn and lives assigned 

I’ll ask whoever’s in charge to 

keep one thing in mind: 

I want to be a duck

(Or maybe a goose) 

One or the other is what 

I would choose.

Imagine…

Soaring over meadows green with clover or

Floating on a silver summer lake

Head tucked under my wing

Dozing under a powder blue sky

Drifting along, singing a song 

With nothing to give, and nothing to take

Flowing with the seasons

So far from faith and reason.

Oh yes indeed 

I want to be a duck 

(Or maybe a goose) 

One or the other is what I would choose.

But on second thought:

Knowing my luck

My star-crossed luck

I’d return a foie gras duck 

CURSED by those gods

Those damnable gods who

Granted my foolish wish.

But a foie gras duck?

I mean, what the fuck!

What the fucking fuck!

That’s not what I said!

I’m better off dead

    Better off dead

         Better off

            Dead.

Alas…

There I would sit all smeared in my shit 

Day after day on a thin patch of hay

Gazing from my tiny cage 

Qua-qua-quacking in rage

QUACKING IN RAGE

Force-fed through a tube 

All greased up in lube to 

Tear out my liver for

Some gourmet’s dinner. 

I find it all quite unfair

So very unfair

This miserable state of affairs.

And then

BEHOLD

As clear as day

As dark as night

As real as thunder

Out of a flash of light

Standing before my cage

My shit-stained cage 

Appears the author of this outrage

One of those fickle gods

One of those shifty devils 

Smirking and giggling 

At my unfair state of affairs:

"Has our little Prometheus reconsidered?”

Why yes, sir, I think I have 

I have indeed 

But all that comes out is

quack quack

quack.

---

Paul Wilke

Dry Grove

6 October 2025