Life

I've heard it said more than once,
Perhaps a dozen times,
expressed in pale, prosaic prose,
and oxy-owlish rhymes,
by poet and philosopher,
optimist and skeptic,
kibitzer, biographer,
pessimist and cynic -
the wealthy-laden;
poverty-ridden,
social scientist and critic,
charlatans, profiteers -
the wise and not so wise,
hustlers, racketeers,
barren and circumcised -
that regardless of who you are ,
life isn't fair -never has been,
it's just the way things go,
sometimes yes, most often no,
you reap what you sow -
filthy rich, rolling in dough,
stone-broke, penniless, dirt poor,
is determined by the hand of fate
When she knocks on the door.

Life isn't fair - never will be
it's just the way things are,
born with the Midas touch, a silver spoon,
or wishing upon a star,
is like the unexpected hand
caught in the proverbial cookie jar.
Life's a split second in space and time,
a measurable pit, an finite climb,
albeit a doer of evil or righteous deeds,
the double-jointed hand of life
offers few guarantees.

Life isn't fair,
it's a two-edged sword,
a Janus-faced catch 22,
half of conjoined twins,
temporally loaned to you.
So live and be merry,
and, surely, if you must -
do what you doubt and trust,
bond with life's ups and downs,
for life's a series of leaps and bounds
Life isn't fair and at the end of it all
is ashes to ashes and dust to dust