he’s like a walking cliché
a person who can perceive
silver linings in every cloud
whose cup’s always half full
when mine’s forever half empty
who looks at this vale of tears
through his rose-tinted glasses
being not the kind of man to feel
those chill winds that blow
from the grave or the guilty pain
from the wasted years of long ago
or think of the future stretching
forth like a desert without an oasis
or the present as living in a nightmare
like Munch’s figure on the bridge
for he regards such pessimism
as without basis and mentally
unsound, if he understands it at all,
yet I give thanks that while trapped
in the prison of my earthly days
this bland optimist is still around.