Wish I knew a way to be,

‘Cos it’s difficult to just exist

Without a thought to the method,

Just conception then … this! Painful

And sort of half-ignorant pottering on this planet

That we like to believe is the limit.

But really there’s a quite a lot in it

And far too much to even perceive, they say,

Shuffling papers on a university desk

At the end of a day

Of teaching philosophy to gormless faces

With minds decidedly in other places

I’d rather be there than here,

For even the best minds get bored I fear,

Emptying dustbins year after year.