Classic Poem

Friend Proclus, the world isn't a fantasy,
Nor a game of magic as you presumed.
Accept that idea in your time, back in your decadent
Neo-platonic school, but the world isn't that.
Nothing of the world is mystical or ideal.
On the contrary, it is a bruising reality,
An objectivity that permits no backtalk.
Cruel, bitter, overbearing and stupid.
Things are what they are and are thus
Out of a torpid mission to be for being's sake,
Without a fixed goal, or a known rational start We
Are children of a demonic fate, despotic, arbitrary.
Cosmic routine and monotony, good Proclus,
Form the base of our being. Since the pristine
Dawn of human existence, boredom, the tedium vitae
Yawns into our souls. Adam's sin
Is our first essence, the evil of Cain.
For all, from the star to the amoeba,
The immanent, inexorable laws
In no way exclude man from the struggle,
The extermination that governs the universe ...
But enough metaphysical openings, Proclus,
You'll hear why I'm so ruthlessly charged
Contra the world. First, from reason and experience,
And second ... How do I relate it ...
It concerns my dog, a magnificent animal,
A huge red-haired dog, a long fine collie,
Elegant and melancholic as a dethroned king
Just yesterday he came to me lovingly
To lick my hand with his moist, pink tongue,
Begging in this way — so sincere, so noble — my consent,
As he did every time that he felt
Like a spree with the town bitches.
Because in moments like these I'd think of you, of your
Idealist philosophy, I hugged him in your name,
Praising all the while his beauty and breed,
Comparing him to the greyhound
Painted at the feet of the Prince of Viana
Then I spoke to him of you and he stared back bewildered,
His quivering black snout looking for you,
Sniffing the air for your invisible presence.

All this happened yesterday, my dear Proclus
Today something tragic, unspeakable took place.
My dog is dead, dead a victim of ethics,
Of the enormous idiocy of human seriousness.
They poisoned him for walking around
Without a license,
As ordered by municipal law
And also for his intrigues:
His being a dog that wooed bitches in public
Offended that virtuous citizenry
Opposed to the wholesome exercise of free love ...
My poor dog, Proclus! How it hurt to look at him!
They kicked him into the garbage truck.
Still alive,
He swayed his tail tenderly
And licked the garbage man's shoes.
Then he closed his eyes and passed to a better life
Here you have a subject to add
To our goddess Reason's
Horrendous history of injustices
Don't you doubt that my dog
In those last critical seconds
Was superior to many martyrs
For his exemplary goodness, for his infinite love
Unequaled even by the genius of Man,
My dog is deserving of a statue,
Deserving of the pomp of a hero's burial,
And that his grave be marked
By a stone inscribed:
" Here lies the most just of the just.
Like Socrates, he shared the last coins
Of his greatness of soul
In exchange for poison
And a few hard kicks. "