by Chad Sweeney
I search the futures for the eras that have subsided
I search the pasts for future generations,
Wandering heaven and earth without limit
I arrive at myself, everywhere, weeping.
— Ch’en Tzu-ang
or three days from now you’ll get up
and cough and spit and push
the lever that sets birds loose from sleep
the machinery of pigeons
revolving above bridges
the colors drawing up from underground
to take their places on the hems
of skirts and on the waters
and you’ll tug the cords of gravity
to pull luck toward you
to disentangle the possibles from the probables
to interrupt the great silent sequences that halo
from the awnings and the myriad
loves will thank you, god help us,
so early in the morning
**
or you’ll place tender pauses in prisons
an inch of air above the mouths
of the dying, bruised air,
flower of the mouth, windowed air
and arcs and circles of leaves
in the acacia
will mirror the dome of the sky
where this low earth wind
rustling of lilacs beside the refinery
will reflect a higher wind in heaven
where our actions go on beyond us
**
or a child will be born in the Grief District of New Orleans
and her name will be No Hope Anywhere
or we’ll pray all night for rain
or we’ll pray all night that a second moon
be placed in the sky over hell
or the colors of candle flames in hell
be unbearable
casting gravity in bronze rings
over a city of weeping lovers
asking what have we done?
**
or hell be a sidewalk in Cleveland
where a man carries his body liked a locked suitcase
or a messiah will save us at last
from waiting for messiahs to save us
or a new kind of hero to swoop down on the safe
and one angel will be called Saigon
and one angel will be called El Paso
and one angel will be called Damascus
and one angel will be called Detroit
and their voices will murmur against the prows of boats
and their cries will sound as the sounds of cities
and one angel will be called Aleppo
and one angel will be called Pittsburgh
and this graveyard be a feeble navy
guarding our sleep
against the holy vastness of night
**
or every thousand years God will say one word
into the blur of tires on wet pavement
or the cum cries of lovers or
God will say Look down, wash
the ants off your feet
or God will say nothing
into the hush of icebergs melting
or icebergs will drift into New York Harbor
and the water in our bodies will bow
________________________
from the poet
“The Futures” is the first sequence in a book of prophecies to be titled The Futures. The book is comprised of a single long poem, one sentence that begins with “or” and ends with “or” to show the continuity of time without end. The project is in dialogue with ancient and medieval traditions of prophecy, yet rather than representing time and “fate” as deterministic and linear, these prophecies attempt to trace multiple possible futures for an era of quantum physics and dramatic ecological and socio-economic change.
Read another sequence from The Futures, “Prophesy of the Heartbeat“