She walked out into
the cold light of her own future
quivering;
half-present
because hard lessons
from her thousand pasts
gave no indication
of any future destination;
therefore, she stalled
at the intersection
strung out on reality
hoping to mold
a destiny
from a too-crowded
yesterday,
one jumbled up with faded significances
leaving her with
obfuscations rambling within her thousand-fold memories,
which taken together, subdued her consciousness
leaving her
devoid of intent
or direction
and meaning.
'I have seen' she said
'too much TV;
too many versions of the truth;
experienced too many versions of my self
to see or forge
a clear path
in my future tense.'
'The Past' she said 'is best lived
in the real world
because if I am swamped by
multitudes of pseudo life experiences
these will not necessarily lead
anywhere
and there is born future confusion
and ended momentum
and I, I see, am left with only
Media, Computer and TV memories
and crippling apathy.'
'Life is best led' she said sadly;
not viewed or merely read;
and how much of what I currently
am
is derived of such? '
And yet
these thousand points
are mine
and part of me;
how to re-assemble them
into coherency-
my generations reveille
and hard task
to achieve.
Lonnie Hicks
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-thousand-pasts/
