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The Near Future

Alan Swope

We have found a cure for cancer.
Human stupidity, though,
is still a raging epidemic.
Streaming has replaced reading,
faces and places flowing
onto our TV screens, relentless
rain on a windowpane. Our screens
now cover one whole wall of every room
in every house, giant portholes on a sub
that hardly ever comes up for air.

The outside air too smoky to breathe,
our homes and cars pressurized bubbles
like a deep diver’s suit.

News, entertainment, and gaming
are interchangeable. We shape
story plots and world events
with a remote control. Each control
has a stress monitor to keep us
in a zone of emotional comfort
and numbing denial.

No news of the outside world’s collapse
can reach us. Fully stocked for survival,
our marvelous self-contained
pyramids are also like those
of the mighty pharaohs,
our tombs.

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