poem

If I were fire, I would burn the world;
if I were wind, I would bestorm it;
if I were water, I would drown it;
if I were God, I would hurl it into the deep;

If I were Pope, I would be happy,
as I would harry all Christians;
if I were emperor, do you know what I would do?
I would chop off the heads of the lot of them.

If I were death, I would go to my father;
if I were life, I would run from him,
and I would do the same for my mother.

If I were Cecco, as I am and have been,
I would take for myself all the young and pretty women,
and leave the lame and ugly for others.

Cecco Angiolieri, 1997