(1) Future Primitive

 

On the horizon

the first buildings can be seen

graceful shapes of chrome and glass

thrust into a brittle blue sky connected

by a tubular umbilicus through which human

figures shuttle to pre-arranged destinations with

mathematical certainty 

 

 

Take a number

 

 

 

 

 

This future

is lived as expected,

we rehearsed daily the yielding

of the beautiful flaw which marked

us human, primitive, unable to march

the civilized quickstep which has now

become the only dance there is and no music

 

 

name please

 

 

 

 

 

Every lust cancelled,

fear acknowledged, passion cooled

marks the passing of the precious jewel

of our incompleteness, the un-cut diamond

of ourselves that ensures my difference from you

and your separateness from me and this was lost in this

primitive future

 

 

social insurance number

driver's licence number

health care number

apartment building number

account number

employee number

 

 

 

 

 

Is it a coincidence

that the root word of number is numb

and finally the yielding of the flaw is complete

and we are the perfect benumbed ciphers living in

counting order beginning at zero and ending at zero

with only the click of lineal digits to mark the passing

of what we once called life.

 

 

form a line to the right

 

 

 

 

 

Elevator music

once a pale sexless shadow

has been reduced further to a

comforting patterned drone that creates

in our inner ear the formation of lines and

intersections which we ourselves will describe

on conveyor belts and moving sidewalks adding up

to the total equation

 

 

form a line to the right

 

 

 

 

 

We live

in our primitive future

as anticipated in the daily reduction

of light and colour to form and matter

resulting in this smoothly turning machine

in which we are nothing but a replaceable cog

which when broken causes nothing but foreseeable

variants plotted in advance on a graph

 

 

form a line

 

 

 

 

(II) Future Perfect

 

 

close your eyes

 

 

Think of gases,

dust clouds from which

vague crumpled shapes emerge

and the light is a strange red, the colour

of blasted brick and teh tarnished blue of

tempered steel

slate gray

 

 

 

 

imagine tomorrow

 

 

You feel

strange fierce winds blowing

directionless swirling eddies whipping

the dust into wide frightened eyes that

see nothing but a pefect future

future perfect

 

 

 

 

the phone rings

what will you wear to the party

 

 

One dog howls,

scavenging packs scour

ravaged parks, back alleys

for scraps of food, scorched morsels

are the only abundance in this most perfect future

future perfect

 

 

 

 

you would like to wear the burgandy sweater

that looks so good with the black sportcoat

but it chafes at the neck

causing irritation

 

 

A moon rises full,

round stained yellow shining

through dust clouds, strange gases

transforming the light through shades

of orange, ochre to pale, luminous white

illuminating at intervals vague crumpled shapes

and slate gray shadows

 

 

 

 

you finally settle

on the striped crew neck

it looks slightly European

and no one at the party has seen it

 

 

The sun streaks

the eastern sky, a red light

marks a new day beginning

and it is quiet the dust has settled,

the dogs have stopped barking, scavenging

 

 

 

 

you are suprised at your nervousness

you adjust the sweater once more

and open the door

 

 

The quiet is complete,

perfect finally beyond anticipation

inquiry past dread, suspense is no longer,

mystery was primitive and the future tense,

perfect.

 

 

 

I'm so glad you could come

and I love your sweater

                            It's perfect

 

 

 

 

 

(iii) The Human Future

 

 

I will love you

in furs, silver fox or mink,

shining and undulant framing

your face, your eyes round and dark

reflecting scattered points of light and when

we make it big someday all this will be yours kid

 

 

I will love you

 

 

 

 

Proudhon said,

knowing our century

better than we ourselves do

"possession is theft" and thereby

making the only possible claim on the future

which is to speak in a voice tht continues to echo

long after the words are spoken

 

 

I will love you

 

 

 

And Corso, with his child-like wisdom

said "the finite is all that you've got and

the infinite is all that you don't got" knowing

that all anyone really has is the infinite possibility

of experience in each second of our lives creating but

not predicting the best of all possible futures

 

 

I will love you

 

 

 

 

The Japanese, after Hiroshima,

coined the word hibakusha meaning

those who do what is necessary, even when

the unimaginable has been described, etched

with human flesh into stone we shall do what is

necessary.  I suspect that many made love that day

in August seeking contact with flesh that had not been

burned

 

 

I will love you

 

 

 

 

Was it only the brownshirts

who with infinite culpability sang

tomorrow belongs to me and thought

they owned the next thousand years or is there

in all of us some of that dangerous sentimentality

which stakes one future against the cost of another

 

 

 

I will love you

 

 

 

 

I will love you in furs,

tattered hunks torn from our kill

wrapped 'round you to insure a future

at least until morning and I'll hunt again

tomorrow to insure another night we shall be

hibakusha doing what is necessary in a future of

any and all possibilities

 

 

and I will love you