Oh, The Places You Won't Go!

 

(Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss, 1990 HC)

Condolences!

Today isn’t the day.
You're off to no place, nowhere and no how. 
You're here to stay, somewhere, and oh wow!

You got a vacancy upstairs.
You have coins in your shoes.
You could buy yourself any ticket you choose.
But you won’t click the button, you’re not gonna broach
You are the guy who can’t travel in coach.

Is it Canada you’ll fly, with the Mounties and moose?

Gathering up maple syrup, flannel and maybe a noose?

You’ll need a new passport, but should stick to poutine.

Posing with cheese curds is hardly routine. 

Or maybe it’s further, way across the pond 

To Europe! Waving your wand

To Heathrow! To Orly! To Charles de Gaulle!

The food carts there are just like a mall.

Best to stay mute, but better to nod

For now, sit tight, just like the Squad

Oh, the places you won’t go!

Not Spain! Not England! Not Germany! Not France!

“Marseille it ain’t so”, said the pimple to the lance,

You’re not here to visit, to stay or to settle

What did the pot say to the kettle? 

Not Corsica, not Sicily, and definitely not Crete,

Those are islands are there, though you’re not gonna meet

You got a home Malibu, and another in Aspen

One more in Palm Springs to keep your staff gasping

Tribeca, Marin and off to Sun Valley

Not too bad, that’s quite the tally

So you’ll be fine, from set to the stage

Dispensaries now, well they’re all the rage 

So sob in your stories, lean into postings

Even rich donors experience ghostings,

Stick to the kitchen, hone your mincing

Instead wasting time on futile convincing.

You’ve said this before, made similar threats

But oh how private planes pile up debts

A familiar feeling, though hardly the first

Can it really be said that this is the worst?

In ’68 you sobbed, sapped of your joy

Considered relocating to some shack in Hanoi

By ’72 things had slowly improved,

But once a knucklehead, always a stooge

Water and gates, plumbers and creeps

Waiting for gas with honking and beeps

The eighties were darker, despite all the glitz

The climate was warming faster than a schvitz

You spent too much time browsing real estate options,

When looking for loopholes, have you consider adoptions?

Things got weirder as we migrated online

Ignoring the geese, their flights sublime

After 2000, it was too much to bear

Committed to moving, only now with less hair

Would you go? Would you leave? Was this really the end?

Not with your living. Make believe! Pretend!

Thank the academy, your producers et al,

They line your pockets with a crypto haul

So...
be your name Beyonce or Barbra or Bruce

or Dicaprio Deniro Damon or Juice

But OJ is gone, into the hereafter,

Is that applause? Or is it laughter? 

Your limo is waiting

So…get on with your day

You're going anywhere, that's what I say