IJE Advance Access originally published online on December 5, 2006
International Journal of Epidemiology 2006 35(6):1423; doi:10.1093/ije/dyl243
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association
Diversion |
Vending machine
he puts four dimes into the slot
he gets himself some cigarettes
he gets cancer
he gets apartheid
he gets the king of greece
federal state tax sales tax and excise
he gets machine guns and surplus value
free enterprise and positivism
he gets a big lift big business big girls
the big stick the great society the big bang
the big puke
king size extra size super size
he gets more and more
for his four dimes
but for a moment all the things he is getting himself
disappear
even the cigarettes
he looks at the vending machine
but he doesn't see it
he sees himself for a fleeting moment
and he almost looks like a man
then very soon he is gone again
with a little click
there are his cigarettes
he has disappeared
he is gone
buried under all the stuff he has gotten
for his four dimes
From Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Selected Poems, trans., Michael Hamburger (Bloodaxe Books, 1994). Reprinted with permission
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