Even Prompter

Time Capsule

Time Capsule

And what have I to say to the future,
to type out neatly in a no-nonsense font
or exemplify in a 1950s detergent ad,
all billowing sheets and technicolor smiles,
perhaps to enquire if Google still exists
to be asked about Bob Mortimer’s fingerprints
on an abandoned handrail? I could enclose
my extendable pocket back scratcher
as a sample of our advanced technology,
leave a copy of Gregory Corso’s poem,
Marriage, as though purely by accident,
tell them of Charlie Watts, Nanci Griffith
and Jeanne Robertson, dead moments ago,
so the future is less bright than it was,
as if the coming centuries could understand
any more than we look back and wish
for other times without conveniences.
And how could I include the insensitivity
of YouTube videos interrupted in mid flow
by adverts for things I’ll never own and
questions with 5,000 answers given
when all we wanted was to know?

I’ll pack a vial with nothing in it,
top screwed on and watertight.
It will at least, if nothing else
be worth the wait of passing years,
for one brief instant,
a breath of fresh air.


Line count: 28
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 13 08.30.21
Prompt: Remember 'time capsules'? Write a poem about what you'd put in one if
you were to create one today.