the wishing well

It was yesterday that i
stumbled upon a wishing well.
it was a cool, tempestual
murmur of a grey,
and the darkness which it bore
had a large belly
and an eye for detail.
it was in this wishing well
that I was able to gaze for the very
first time into my future.
there was an obdurate silence,
and then a loud clap of thunder
tore away at my ears,
denying my defenses,
snickering at me like a man in a dream
i had very long ago.

i saw beneath strokes of deep and voluptuous
purples and reds a nation
which was dying,
where the colors so vibrant
and the voices so loud
and the liquor fermented to the point of
exhaustion
made the heart and the mind sick.

but then I remember I was a poet
so I looked into the well once more

and I saw a man standing tall on a hill reciting
lyrics from the ancient balladeers,
pretending to be the fabled fool
who stood on a hill
and saw the world spinning round.
but the man was a regression,
a simple repetition of the
chords and the signals
relayed again and again and again
and I became frustrated and stepped back.

and looked into the well for a final time.

and I saw a canvass signed
with my very own mark, but the canvass
was blank.
at first this upset me until I realized something fairly important.
i was wasting my time looking into the future
instead of making it