/lit/ - Literature

What's the world going to be like in fifty years?

I foresee a Spanish speaking Renaissance. Weird, poetic gangs of robotics engineers reviving the style of Francisco de Quevedo while planting machines in the ground that will rise and burst into circles of fire at the whims of the Spanish speaking gang.

Degas

Violet sat down and began to play her harp. It sounded crisp and gentle. Every night she would play after her husband and the servants had gone to bed at the other end of the house. Her hands took control and brought the song out. Visions appeared inside of her. Mountainous landscapes rose and fell. Large glacial walls welled up around her. The images stirred a deep and pleasant loneliness in the pit of her; a feeling of dark power and great need. When she stopped it was like coming out of a pleasant dream. Sweetness lingered in her head and mouth.
The next morning, Violet awoke early and was dressed. Her husband left for work and she went for a walk downtown. The cobblestone was wet and dark with rain. Horse drawn carriages created patterns of clicks and tocks that bounced off the factory walls. Violet stopped and looked into a small dirty factory window. Inside she saw worn looking men and women working a giant machine. Small children scurried around the moving parts at the bottom picking up bits of string that fell. Violet became transfixed by the rhythm of the moving parts. They spun, bobbed, and swiveled back and forth. Some moved in chains of oblique circles. The machine seemed to create a small orchestra of whirring and clicking noises.
The sound and movement died in an instant as a horrible snap came from the machine followed by a grinding noise. An older man yelled upwards to the foreman to stop the machine; he had seen what happened, as did Violet. An old woman gasped--another let out a sob. Others looked around confused, trying to understand the cause of the interruption. Violet let out a whimper. One of the young girls collecting stray bits of string had accidentally gotten caught in the moving parts. The sound was the snapping and crushing of her neck. The girl’s body hung limp under the machine. Her head bent backwards above it.

Share your poems, if you'd like.

We are living in a new age
of declining days and hours
and seconds and silence.
Roots will seek
dirt and dogs will hunt.

I walked through your
neighborhood at night
to see you and say,
"Hello"
But no one was home.
You were out spinning
in the tall grass
under a milking moon
of wax and honey.

We are living in the
day of old sun.
Looking for a hole to fill
or a soul to steal.
Grass it grows
tall and teeth will crack.

I called out to you
from the depths of a dark river,
to see you and say,
"Thanks"
But no one was near.
You were off chasing
clouds and cucumbers,
bottle tops and bobby pins.