"Future"

            

            We walk through nightmares of the past,

living an existence of future fears.

            Desperately struggling among the mountainous

crags of pre-fabricated foods and chemically made beer cans,

our test tube babies weep with bitter need,

as automated mothers

rock rhythmically back and forth.

            No one saw today as it was to be.

            We run through our own living hell,

Never feeling, desiring, or loving.

            Mirrors are no longer needed,

nor are youthful photographs taken—

for images of ourselves are seen scrambling

among the barren garbage dumps

searching for rustic vestiges of yesterday—

an identity.

            No one saw today as it was to be.

            We trudge through old decaying minds,

trying to forget our own impotence.

            Whimpering trepidations never cease,

for like howling canines long starved for passion,

the souls of society disintegrated

into a pile of biological residue.

            And no one say today as it was to be.

Copyright 1975 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman