The Future: A WCC Poetry Club Anthology

THE FUTURE

Preview Edition

A WCC Poetry Club Anthology Edited by Tom Zimmerman & Tyler Wettig

THE FUTURE A WCC Poetry Club Anthology Edited by Tom Zimmerman & Tyler Wettig

= I've seen the nations rise and fall I've heard their stories, heard them all but love's the only engine of survival —And now the wheels of heaven stop you feel the devil's riding crop Get ready for the future: it is murder —Leonard Cohen

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The Future is a publication of the WCC Poetry Club, Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

This issue was produced on a PC using Microsoft Publisher.

Fonts used are Bernard MT Condensed and Lucida Bright. Book design by Tom Zimmerman. Reproduced by the WCC Copy Center.

Photographs were taken at the Ann Arbor Women’s March, January 21, 2017.

Copyright Š 2017 the individual authors and artists.

The works herein have been chosen for their literary and artistic merit and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Washtenaw Community College, its Board of Trustees, its administration, or its faculty, staff, or students.

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THE FUTURE Contents—Words Diane M. Laboda John A. Bullard Diane M. Laboda William Bullard Tyler Wettig Lawson Vaughn Tom Zimmerman

The Future Pendulum Time Balances “Be Still and Know” the Future A Dollhouse Arson Tupac Rap Surprise Contents—Images

Ann Zimmerman Tom Zimmerman

Front cover, 2, 5, 12, 14, back cover 4, 7, 9, 11, 15

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DIANE M. LABODA The Future All we have is now.

All we ever had is now, until it became the past and then we had that too to pack away in the second neuron on the right, just in front of yesterday but behind the now that’s now.

All I have is you.

All I ever had is you, until you walked away and then I had the vision of you walking away and wondered why it mattered so much, when just this morning you said you loved me.

All I want is what I don’t have.

All I ever wanted is what I didn’t have, what slipped away because I didn’t take care to love it enough, give it a poem to feed on, a vision to dream on, four walls and a roof to call home.

All I hope for is this.

All I ever hoped for is this: to live in a now of my own creation, to love an other who knows me better than I know myself, and to want for nothing more than the next line in this story.

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JOHN A. BULLARD Pendulum So the pendulum swings, apparently, So that history can be repeated.

Progress can be made, slowly and gently, Yet so suddenly can be defeated.

Twenty-four decades to elect a black man With high hopes for a woman to be next.

But the forces of hatred could not stand The wisdom of the fairer, stronger sex.

For eight years they had been forced to endure The intelligent grace of Obama.

Perceived failure to keep The White House pure Aggravated their twisted souls like trauma.

No surprise, decency was rejected And the voice of bigotry elected.

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DIANE M. LABODA Time Balances Have we reached it yet?

Somewhere at the end of the bucket list but before we call in all our markers and tally up the time we have left.

Is that it?

Maybe there’s a bank and trust that handles our time balances: “You’ve reached the summit, now cash in the rest of your time if you want to reach nirvana.”

Maybe there’s an exchange that trades in time, like stock brokers, fast and furious on-the-floor trades— minutes for a Starbuck’s, hours for a trip to Treasure Island.

Organic farm co-ops could have a barter system—fresh broccoli and kale for an hour’s worth of dreams, or one ripe cantaloupe for time for a nap.

Perhaps schools could advance their students a grade for borrowed time in the tropics. It’s a win-win.

Kids know more and mom and pop work on their tans.

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Time could be traded during a baseball game for automatic scores, no running the bases, just give us the instant replays, instantly.

Maybe that walk in the woods could be traded for a short video on being in the moment, get rid of the middle man and the shedding pet.

Maybe we could reach our final high after we’ve said all the things we think are important to hear, like “I care.” “You are my sunshine.” “I love you.”

“Here’s the secret to longevity.”

Put this on my headstone: “Time’s up.”

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WILLIAM BULLARD “Be Still and Know” the Future (Fragmentum) We seem to be experiencing a different future. A future many of us never thought would be ahead of us. This is an alternative universe, perhaps. We feel a great deal of grief. Still, as we grieve, we can ask: what will it teach us? What will we learn from it? What will we write that we can’t say now? When, in that future, we are in psychotherapy, what we say about the effects of now, which will be the past of this new future. Obviously, I am talking about the outcome of the election – in part. We never expected Hillary Clinton to lose. (Of course, she, in a sense actually didn’t.) (Also, it may be that if the election had not been tampered with, Hillary Clinton would have won.) One way or other, this is a new cycle, a darkness, a new nigredo. “Darkness is on the face of the deep.” We need to be still now. This is the darkness of the future. We need to be in a position to do what is necessary. But, it is time to look within for guidance, to listen to our inner voice. That is where the real future comes from. We don’t need to be suspicious of that future. “Be still and know.”

When we are being still so that we can know, meaning we are aware of the inner voice, we are in the present. This is where we can hear our inner voice. The 20th century transpersonal theorist and psychologist Lloyd A. Meeker said, “Live in the present, with your proper contact with the future, and allow that which is of the future to come into manifestation with the leading edge of the present moment.” When Meeker indicates that we “live in the present,” he is, at least in part, indicating that we need to live in the still space. He also indicates that as we live in the present, we need to have a “proper contact with the future,” however that may be. We have things we need to pay attention to. Yet, we cannot handle something in the future. We can only handle something now – in the present.

We don’t know what will occur with this new President and this upcoming Congress. There are predictions, and it is appropriate to 10

give some attention to them. However, it is appropriate to remember that predictions indicated Hillary Clinton would be elected.

Lloyd Meeker further indicates that we must “allow that which is of the future to come into manifestation with the leading edge of the present moment.” Meeker indicates that we “allow” the future to manifest. In his farewell address, President Obama, presenting an optimistic vision, spoke about how to manifest the future. He said, “Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.” He further said, “for those of us fortunate enough to have been a part of this work and to see it up close, let me tell you – it can energize and inspire.”

We need to “Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.” We need also to “be still and know.”

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TYLER WETTIG A Dollhouse Arson I had another dream about my Grandfather last night.

Not the one where he springs back to life and wanders frailly about his ransacked house.

He doesn’t crawl up the stairs like the dream about my dead father. There is no symbol imprinted in his forehead. No shootout in the driveway.

People are thrashing about a hospital room, but I can’t see inside. I’m the gonzo journalist on the fringes of that era’s bitter end.

I wake up with a nosebleed and let it drip into a cup so as to defy that death is sweet, but all is static like a train suspended on an overpass.

Grandpa once told me that I’d understand everything when I’m 80 years old. I once declared to my parents that I would die when I was 99.

Before that prophecy, I will be the voice of reason before reason regains its voice.

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LAWSON VAUGHN Tupac Rap Tupac always managed to make top-notch hip-hop.

I would even listen to him on my laptop non-stop because he was the “King of Pop” of hip-hop.

I heard his music first played when I was in 7th grade.

My dad was hating because he thought it would cause me to start misbehaving, and that’s not what he was planning on raising, and he didn’t want that to be the music I was craving, and he didn’t agree with the things Pac was saying.

And neither do I to a certain extent, but whether you agree or disagree, Pac’s rhymes were so excellent that to this day he still remains relevant.

Even in this day and age, his music is still prevalent.

His music was just as big as an elephant, and the proof of that is just evident.

My kids may even know Tupac like I know Elvis Presley because they both have time-defining legacies, and even though they’re both dead, they will still live on in their melodies as long as we have them in our memories.

R.I.P. Tupac Shakur: may your legacy always endure.

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TOM ZIMMERMAN Surprise The century’s late teens, its acne bloom.

The street’s ice-scabs I pick at with my dogwalk boots. The only bleeding, energy and time: a lava flow, an avalanche that swallows just to spit us out at death.

Cheer up, I tell myself. Good beer is in the fridge. The poet that I’m reading now glides smooth as cream and buries sweet dreams deep.

The angel loves the animal in me.

A soft rain ticks, a clock reversed. That sax that Ornette Coleman tweaks draws laughing birds to perch inside the porches of my ears.

Is beauty such a rare thing? Hmm. I turn the volume up, surprised by joy again.

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WCC Poetry Club | Washtenaw Community College | Ann Arbor, MI