To Hope for the Worst

Poemata IX

The doomsday writers are optimists--
Of what better things does the future consist
Than to go out gloriously into the sun
Burning in the Nemesis that we've begun
To make by the hands which move the spheres
So to move past these, our worldly fears?

We see in every dirge for Modernity
A belief concerning what it must be
The present is special in the eyes of man
Who walks backwards quite as fast as he can
And things nearby loom large because
Perspective is part of the natural laws;

An age-old story looms large on the rim
Of the sky, though distance may render it dim
Man controlled by money--! And gold
The most inert of all things I'm told
Hated perhaps, but for all I can see
Used constantly throughout all history;

A comedy perhaps? Of errors unseen
A wave of the world, a brazen sheen
To blind the eyes, to crash on the shore
To leave a darkened line-- of what more
Does man's mere earthly future consist?
The doomsday writers are optimists.