Truth was everywhere

A call to poets
(Image by Philip Ed)   Details   DMCA

We poets take no responsibility
For the forms of civilization;
There are architects
To create the shells we leave behind.
It is our nose for truth
That makes us poets,
A requirement of human evolution
That civilization exploits,
Or straight out denies.
Truth does not build on truth.
Each generation may rightly lay claim to it!
It has to be experienced.
And truth is self-sufficient.
A good life can be built
Around some very simple truths.
Being pushed by the wind,
I once found myself caught up
In a storm of milkweed parachutes,
And truth was everywhere. . .
Architects are illusionists.
And we're running out of toothpicks and tinsel!
Soon there will be cities built out of smoke
And reflections,
But before that happens
There may come a day
When we sit down to a dinner
Of artificial memories,
Choosing from a menu
Of long-forgotten tastes.
I remember a cover
Of a science fiction thriller in the 50s,
Depicting an alien landscape:
In the foreground, a canyon
With the rusty hull
Of a spaceship leaning
Silhouetted on a rise,
And behind that, looming
Mirage-like in the distance,
Great mountainous hives of a super city,
Which, due to its remoteness I guess,
Enhances the incorruptible romance
Of an alien dusk.
There is our future, if we're not careful!
Form, gargantuan, cosmic,
Posing as the last, unbuildable city.
But it's always been there!
Like a screensaver on the inner eye
Of a species that never felt at home,
Showing us what we will look like
When the simple truths are gone.