We make Plans and begin to Guess
How far the Future will resemble us²
If Good things are coming, they will
Be a Pleasant Surprise – if Bad things
Are, and you know in Advance, you’ll
Suffer Greatly Before they even Occur³
Take no thought for the Morrow, for the
Morrow shall take thought for things itself⁴
Each time they part, they extract only one small
Promise from each other: Tomorrow? Tomorrow⁵
The Orgastic Future year by year recedes before us:
Tomorrow we’ll run faster, stretch our arms further⁶
In the Rivers North of the Future I cast the Net⁷
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Creeps in this Petty Pace from day to day
To the Last Syllable – of Recorded Time⁸
The cards from a Fortune-Teller’s deck
Are Scattered – Prophesying Nothing⁹
That you move so Beautifully
Takes care of Futurism¹⁰
¹ Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy
² Rae Armantrout, In the Future
³ Paulo Coelho tr. Alan R. Clarke, The Alchemist
⁴ Matthew 6:34 (King James)
⁵ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
⁶ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
⁷ Paul Celan tr. Pierre Joris, In the Rivers
⁸ William Shakespeare, Macbeth
⁹ Yukio Mishima tr. Nathan, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
¹⁰ Frank O’Hara, Having a Coke with You