There once was a hungry fool, who found a fork
Only such a fork could have made
    A meal of beef from a cow resting in the shade,
    Or from a pig, a meal of pork,
Our hungry fool had found his fork.

But his hunger was not abated,
No matter how many meals he tried
    The head of a cow, the tail of a pig, jutting from his side
    No matter how many meals he awaited
The poor fools hunger was never abated.

If he threw the fork at this feet,
    That was the meal the fork would find,
    The fork it acted of its own mind
And of his leg the fool would eat,
If the fork was thrown at his feet.

And if he threw it further away,
    Land it in a tree instead,
    The fool would have this jutting from his head
Inside him, whole, each hunger would stay,
It was impossible to throw this fork away.

So the fool put the fork in a pot,
And heated the fork till it was red hot,
But melt the fork, he could not
But cool the fork, he could not
No matter how much water he put in the pot.

And even a lake could not quench its thirst,
It would dry the lake, make a cloud so lart that rain would burst,
And the fool was left worse off than at first.

So in the ocean, the fork the fool would drown,
And he called the largest animal there could be,
    In the deepest, largest expanse of sea,
It was a whale that he had found
To drag the fork to the ocean's ground.

And this is what the fool said:
"O great whale, heed what I say,
For you will never be hungry from this day,
If you take this fork and drag it down,
Plant it in the deepest ocean's ground,
The ocean will give you all  you need,
If what I say, you will heed."

And so ... the whale opened his mouth,
The fool let the fork sail.

Until that day, there never had been seen,
A wave on the ocean, calm and serene,
But now there's this fork in the belly of a whale,
Who would eat himself, and from what he ate, he became,
So the poor whale would rest forever the same,
Except every stroke of the fork, which makes a great wave
    By the thrust of the tail of the whale who feels great pain.

So a hungry fool sits by the side of the shore,
With his head in his hands hearing the end of the tail
    Of the fork and the fool and the pain stricken whale.
    And with a fool's hunger he always wants more,
Of the never ending sound by the side of the shore.


1982 Paris                      next->