The Future Doesn't Exist

I want you to trace every single shoreline
In a tincan boat with a home made oar
But you never will, no you never could
You don't know much, to you, the future doesn't exist
I want you to know about the poet who tried to swim
Half way 'round the world
And fly like his name sake from the bridge
To the bottom of a bottle
But you wouldn't see the beauty, the tragedy
I want you to know about the poet
Who fell in love with the enigma
The peasant and the landscape
And was murdered as he dwelt on beauty
But you wouldn't smell the Spanish summer
You don't pay the price of emotion to feel the past explode in your heart
So the gods watch you as they watch us all
But those of us who feel the burn to fall into the ocean
To have waves pull at us and drag us around Albion, the Americas, Africa, the world
To have the night sky close around us for one thousand days
Until we ourselves become stars that shine on the loneliest corner of Ethiopia
To listen to the poetry of the cities, of factory fires, of spring birds, of rivers
Rivers that carry bodies, naked boys that swim, weeds and willow
We are the ones that keep them occupied
What would it take you to make you aware of the N.Y. poet?
Of the English man in Alexandria?
Of the French boy with the wounded wrist?
Of the Australian with numbed right side?
How can I make you hear the music of the poet's summer?
Should I push you off the side of a ship?
Make you stand in front of a firing squad in a Spanish field?
Or merely let you go on being, beneath the watch of the gods
Professional, seeing a bridge as a bridge, and never smelling history on a book
Never hearing a voice of desperation or a cry of passion on the breeze
Meanwhile, I will be building a tincan boat- I plan to set sail in the autumn