a ghost
Wandering in America 100
years from now,
After IT happens,
whatever IT is.
I float down Average Avenue,
in Springfield, always Springfield.
Weeds cover everything, the roofs are
collapsed,
But I see what was.
Through the bolted door, I
perceive the TV blazing like a cold hearth,
stealing: stealing poetry, heat, music.
Strange shapes move on it, but they mean nothing.
I see the people, frozen, not in
contemplation, but in ablation.
Their lives consist in forgetting their lives.
Work is play, and play is something for children.
And the play of children is eagerly consumed,
because there is little else.
Mass produced food is mass produced in the kitchen.
It is subjected to suitable reactions, and enhanced steams
fill the room.
The children, not knowing
how to inhabit this world, begin slowly,
with their own devices, their own screens. Mommy
feels nothing. Daddy feels nothing. Perhaps I
should feel nothing too.
I watch, and wonder why they can’t turn outward.
Or perhaps, why they cannot turn inward.
I wonder, why they are frozen even now, as they
were frozen then, awaiting they knew not what.
There are ghosts, and
there are the ghosts of ghosts.
Not all that ever lived ever left
a mark.
We are all cast into the world,
but many spend their lives waiting to be cast
into something else.
This is the life of a toadstool.
Comment: sorry. I feel bleak at the moment, but it will improve. This is my method.