Hope For Less | Allen Ashley & Sandra Unerman
I
He said,
“Hope is a whited sepulchre.
It keeps you going when you ought to give up.
I don't want to keep going.
I don't want to keep calm and carry on.
I mean to dig a deep hole and climb into it.”
She said,
“I'll help you.
Get dressed and we'll go and buy a spade.
And some new clothes to dig in.”
“Don't want new clothes.”
“You won't be comfortable in your old ones.
And we should get some chocolate to eat in the hole.
And a blanket to lie on.”
He liked it when she was bossy
but he muttered darkly,
“Hope is the last twist of the knife,”
as they set off for the shops.
II
We are told not to live our lives
without hope,
that insidious trickster,
that fashioner of illusions.
Rid yourself of its false shine
while you still can.
Hope is a wingèd thing
in the same sense as the malaria-spreading mosquito
or the tsetse fly.
Hope was the final curse to
come out of the box
only because it was the barrel
scraping,
the scum that stuck to the sides.
I
He said,
“Hope is a whited sepulchre.
It keeps you going when you ought to give up.
I don't want to keep going.
I don't want to keep calm and carry on.
I mean to dig a deep hole and climb into it.”
She said,
“I'll help you.
Get dressed and we'll go and buy a spade.
And some new clothes to dig in.”
“Don't want new clothes.”
“You won't be comfortable in your old ones.
And we should get some chocolate to eat in the hole.
And a blanket to lie on.”
He liked it when she was bossy
but he muttered darkly,
“Hope is the last twist of the knife,”
as they set off for the shops.
II
We are told not to live our lives
without hope,
that insidious trickster,
that fashioner of illusions.
Rid yourself of its false shine
while you still can.
Hope is a wingèd thing
in the same sense as the malaria-spreading mosquito
or the tsetse fly.
Hope was the final curse to
come out of the box
only because it was the barrel
scraping,
the scum that stuck to the sides.