Pale, pubescent beasts
Roam through the streets
And coffee-shops

Their prey gather in herds
Of stiff knee-length skirts
And white ankle-socks

But while they search for a mate
My type hibernate
In bedrooms above

Composing their songs of love

Young, uniform minds
In uniform lines
And uniform ties

Run round with trousers on fire
And signs of desire
They cannot disguise

While I try to find words
As light as the birds
That circle above

To put in my songs of love

Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice
Fortune depends on the tone of your voice

So sing while you have time
Let the sun shine down from above

And fill you with songs of love

Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice
Fortune depends on the tone of your voice

So sing while you still can
While the sun hangs high up above

Wonderful songs of love

Beautiful songs of love
Beautiful songs of love
Beautiful songs of love

--Ben Folds

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know
it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and
am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

-Walt Whitman