CASUALTIES

The road that heads for disaster
at the very first appears to end
delusively farther.
You only manage to notice it
once you got stuck right in it,
hearing roaring the so-far unperceived
self-hidden.
 
The road that befalls you with a windfall
always falls somewhat short
of our skill to elicit
such things as wishings.
It requires a patient outwinning
of an ingrained habit of ruling out expectancies
stretching beyond our wildest dreamings.
 
The road that leads towards disaster
paces much faster than the grip we master
of a briefly-before and a right-after:
no rooms rests for manoevres
of old dear self-deception,
nor a wisp of a twist by whatever measures
improvized with bits of wishful thinking.
 
The road that whirls you into a windfall,
if it ever ends at all,
might hit onto the wall of an inkling,
that while some of our needs are met
all else may well be left
just as ugly and deprived
as spinster Necessity.
 
It is quite often tough
to tell one from the other.
You may be at this very moment
stepping over either threshold,
being seized
by the unesy gut-feeling
that they are somehow sort of brothers.