Thursday, December 17, 2009

Time Capsule 2626

In those days God was a heap of blank
cassette tapes and twisted rabbit ears.
The people had more knowledge than sense,
and commercials could incite riots.
I guess things aren't any better now.
Our cars still have tires,
and jetpacks were outlawed a century ago.
Now, everyone knows that Elvis was real,
and that Microsoft was a myth,
and none of us want our meal
to come in a pill or powder.

We quit war, but that took the fun
out of football and professional wrestling,
and we grabbed our guns and invaded Mexico.
Religion finally gave up, then it massacred nations,
then gave up again. We made it illegal
Then again, cigarettes are illegal too,
but they're not going to smoke themselves,
though we have robots that can do that for us.
But, in those days, robots danced endlessly
in front of monster-truck dealerships.
The language was a series of clicks
bouncing off monstrous satellites in space.

4 comments:

shaun said...

the last four lines are definitely the strongest. the first two lines are also v good. The way this poem works best is when it presents unique thoughts about the future. The cigarettes being illegal part isn't as unique an idea as the others, so I would suggest outlawing something nobody's considered outlawing yet (good luck DEMOCRAT JOAK YUK YUK) and then having the robots do it themselves. I think if you clean that section up the poem will feel a lot tighter. this has been a shaun gannon thing he said

Ryan Rader said...

good point, but can i get away with a robo-smoking imagery? i may try.

Tyler Gobble said...

For me, the first two lines were a real big hook. Then again, I like anything to do with God.

Also, I am digging the amount of "s"es in the the second stanza. Fun to say.

shaun said...

yes keep the robo-smoking. i suggest just having robots addicted to cigarettes.

my captcha is crowpvp. a game where people play as fighting crows would rule