2020 Vision

“I must confess...I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.” MLK 1963

We now stare into a grave mirror
From which we must not look away
We see ourselves stripped
Of veneer and glossy coats and borrowed honor
The smiling intentions we hide behind
For this mirror exposes our collective soul
Penetrates our decent contented white pickets
To reveal the rot, the necrosis
Born of complacency and ignorance
We do not live in a United State
We are not all equally created
Justice peeks out over her flimsy blindfold
Arranged to admit ancestry privilege uniformity
In her right hand she lifts high a plentiful
Basket of investments and mortgages
Tax breaks and early retirement
With a dollop of piety served atop a Starbucks latte
While from her left hand there dangles a paper tote filled
With the bitter herbs of poverty and prison and persecution

But the code has been broken
Confidence shaken
Corporations quake
The pillars are falling
And the temple totters
Unmuzzled voices are proclaiming
Redress for the rotten flesh
That must be scrubbed away so
The new is grafted to vigorous skin
But only if we can see ourselves
In reverse
A new way to move forward
Only if our vision is fixed on
The reflection that reveals
The contagion
For to waver is to succumb
To turn away again
is to invite pain
cataclysm
and needless
death

We want what we want...

We are coming up for one final breath, the last feckless gasp before
we surrender to the waves and bid good bye to a World that once
nurtured us, the same World we lied to and neglected and abused...

We are rocked by righteous winds that roar out of the angry seas
to wash away our homes and cities with a fury from which we
cannot hide, nor can we escape the next time nor the next...

We huddle in matchstick houses while forests rage with unquenchable
hellfire and our cites are left a charred memory of life together before
the heat and drought and fire and wind combined for holy revenge...

We stare from the borrowed shores as doomed reefs and seals, algae
and anemone, sharks and dolphins become scarce, disappear, perish
then go extinct all because we want what we want right now...

Someday perhaps we too will go extinct and the inferno will burn itself
out and the sky will clear and the coral will thrive and fish will leap
and new life will spread across the New World that will sigh and give thanks...

The Vault

I.The Dream
He came to me in a dream, chewing gum
warning me that this may be perplexing
a mathematical concept that I might not understand
but if I thought of a mirror...
So it appeared before me, tall and oval...
“The Vault,” he explained, “is like the space behind you
and to the sides of your reflection measured in time...
It's the place where things happen that you cannot see
unless you know where to stand...”
He stood behind my reflection, smiling, assuming he had
explained this well enough... “And you?” I asked.
“Dreams too are mathematical,”he said then walked off
into The Vault, back to where the numbers had made him
I turned around but he was gone...
I might have leaned my forehead against the hard glass
to catch a glimpse of him but The Vault is a vast place
a Not-reality we see into like TeleVision or a Feature Film
or the World Wide Web (yet another type of mirror)
where we peer in then step back...to wonder
II.The Numbers
I awoke and thought I could smell him
a lingering scent of spearmint
I checked my phone for the time: 4:30 am
and I shuddered
for the mathematics began to speak to me
(Daily Average 7h 34m Up 21% from last week)
and I saw that the darkly lit world inside my phone
was yet another way to see into The Vault
where time is stored in 1s or 0s
in or out left or right right but never wrong
The numbers never lie and the mirror never blinks
but instead flips things around backwards
(Rather, it is we who lie to Ourself)
III.We, Ourself
But The Vault has a glitch: It swirls all around us
but Ourself does not have to accept its Not-reality
We can stand guard over the pathways to and from Ourself
filtering the input and the output, asking:
Who are you? And Who sent you? And What do you want?
We can scrutinize The Vault's Not-reality
We can control the tone and volume of the noise
then awaken to say No! to our dreams
We can Try Another Way...
The Vault People read from a script
The Dream People can only show us the jumbled numbers
they have seen

(The Vault, 2)

The mirror just stares dumbly back from its depth-less
unyielding surface
The Spearmint Man was pleased that he knew
something I could never understand
But I now realize: We need never understand
the darkness and Not-reality of The Vault
and the spaces that are measured out in numbers
that need not be counted and so every day
we get to wake up to fly solo for the first time
free of others' insinuations and calculations...

Alone

Rule Number One
Always stay Together
The Scoutmaster has warned us
Do not go anywhere Alone
Now we are both Alone
We have broken Rule Number One

I did not see him fall from the cliff
But I hear his creature moans
And pathetic keening without urgency
His muddled cries of confusion
Wondering What is happening
And Where am I

Creeping toward the alien noises
I am drawn into the tall brush by
A terrible curiosity and find him in
A pool of blood below the high
Treeless wall
His arm has too many joints

He is so covered in blood
I think he was another
I look up but there is no one
On the rocks above
He had been descending Alone
Without a rope Against the Rules

So I run away and crawl into my
Hot dark tent in the woods
I hide in my sleeping bag
A pillow over my head
No cries no blood
No broken rules or bones

Later it is my father who hears him
Looks down to find his crumpled body on
The rocks below
An ambulance arrives but I hide in my tent
I don’t tell anyone about
The bashed in face and twisted arm

Until a night six months later when
I told my good friend Buddy that
I had seen him broken on the crimson rocks
but didn’t recognize the mangled mess
I was alone I was 8 years old and
I didn’t tell anyone

Scornful

My Lover told me Unconditional Love is no
Love at all—a myth a rumor a fool’s paradise

For we can never know all our own issues
Our ludicrous hearts show us only those things

That surprise and entertain us until they don’t
Anymore and then we have choices to make...

So it was with our friend Claire who fell in love
at first sight pledging unconditional love forever

But she eventually left him in a tangle of regret
And confusion when those things which had at

First dazzled and enticed her did not endure
Were possibly never there even as they

Shimmered in their shared perception
A delectable mirage that grew fainter the

Closer they moved toward each other
Until they passed through one another

On the way to new enticements from their
Latest lovers who dazzled and promised...

But—hadn’t he been clever and gentle
Made her feel zesty and amorous

Didn’t they laugh together at the foibles
That made them so human and forgivable

When did they stop laughing and start
hoping they might last forever anyway

And when did they start hoping
That maybe they wouldn’t after all...

Unconditional Love is no love at all
My Lover told me It’s all just bullshit

You don’t have to check off all the boxes
But you sure as hell better check some...

Robert Walters: After graduating from West Virginia University, Robert K Walters moved to Asheville, NC, where he teaches Literature, Writing, and Creative Writing. He also plays drums in a blues band to calm a restless spirit. He is married to his favorite person, and they have three large sons. He gets published often enough to believe it is possible.