Harry's Last Good Night

We men are in prison all that time which we choose to
call life. For this soul of ours, being bound and fettered
in a perishable body, has to endure many things, and be
the slave of all the affections which visit humanity.

-Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 7.26

The punishments, they are so many
The hounds of heaven are loose
Tonight I am Harry Houdini
And slide my neck out of the noose

It was Plato who spoke of Ananke
The goddess who governed the Fates
You may honour the essence of daimons
But magic resides in the traits

Though I dream of being another
I know that would be a mistake
The road that led me from my mother
Was the only road I could take

What if they aren't any choices
And surrender's the lone agency
A leaf falls exact on its shadow
And only by falling is free

We're careful from moment to moment
Though no one can alter his course
If all that happens is fated
Where is the need for remorse

Does circumstance leave us a victim
Is a mistake or an accident sin
I'm forever adjusting my collar
I feel something pulling again

My mind is the last to surrender
It argues all night and all day
With my heart and its regular thunder
To accept is the reason I pray

Welcome poverty, prejudice, failure
And the straitjackets they put me in
Every night I sleep in a coffin
Each morning I escape again

The truer I am to my master
The longer my balance will hold
The moment I tire of responding
Is the moment I start to grow old

Between living the fact and the fiction
Necessity leads me to lie
If I do what I must it will kill me
And yet if I don't I will die

By a necklace I am held prisoner
By yoke and by ring I'm a slave
Maybe the gods are diseases
And death an escape from the grave

The punishments, they are so many
The hounds of heaven are loose
Tonight I am Harry Houdini
And slide my neck out of the noose

DL