Prevent the Collapse

The Future

That was the future I came back from
vomiting the taste of the sulfur of my lowest
intestine on my tongue the taste of active
not theoretical not imagined despair.

It wasn't only the deserts impinging
encroaching devouring nor the fevers
charring the last damp from the rivers
the last lick of sap from the withering wheat.

Nor only the ruins of cities spilled out
on highways like coal like kindling the men
groin to groin bound in their rage and despair
like Siamese twins Siamese hordes.

It wasn't the women cowled like turbines
howling like turbines and the children
sentried on cliffs with nothing to nourish
their genius but shrapnels of scrub.

It was grasping rather that their desires
were like mine without limit like mine
checked only by vile chance not rational
supply and demand as I'd been taught.

That their fear was so fierce they wanted
to no longer be endowed with matter
so when houses were built they were razed
when food was grown it was despoiled.

We were locusts we were scorpions
husks hooked on thorns seeds without soil
wombs of a world without portal
flesh and dream we breathed and we slept.

C. K. Williams


Kevin M. Hoover

        “The Future”, written by C.K. Williams, invokes a sense of carpe diem for me because it warns against the future we’re heading towards. It begs the reader to make a change in the world because if we continue doing what we’re doing, there won’t be a world to save. Not in the sense that we all need to gather around the campfire and sing Kumbaya, rather that we must fix the flaws in our society. It tells the reader that there are cracks and tears in the fabric of our government and our economy which need to be sewn up before they collapse upon themselves. Williams begs his reader to seize the day and save us from the future which we are barreling towards.
        I do not know what CK Williams’ inspiration to write the “The Future” was, but I would assume that he intended to inspire his readers to make a change for the better. In my mind, the only alternative motive for the poem was to tell a story about another world, but I do not believe that to be true. CK Williams paints a picture of the future that would disgust any man. I believe that this was done on purpose so that anyone who read would see that there are flaws in the way we conduct ourselves that need to be fixed.