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the Gravity of Discontent (for John Titor)

I’m a time-traveler.
and I chart the best of all possible worlds,
but the gravity of discontent will grip your line
as each new choice unfurls

it’s a standard issue: “I’m a government man ”
my machine bends light, makes heat,
fits in the passenger seat of an old Trans-Am
I’m not asking you to believe me, just
give a damn

now, you can look forward, too: a not-so-civil war
police state, who’s the hate crime victim?
a prism to split your spirit (as you row the boat from the shore...? ? )
choppy waters,
haughty orders,
cultures clash and oceans roar

all your people stand poised to inherit the whirlwind
of outsourced anger:
bitter and shaming and sore

when word get around...
I suppose we can take the forms of animals,
contented clowns, or storms intangible -
subdivide. and wait around.
(but why not now?)

So, where are they? Are they going to hunt me down?
secret offices, airports, special equipment
a doll with another doll hiding inside of it!
Soon,
Very soon, for the ending times...

I’m a man on the sidewalk,
holding a sign...

*****************************************
notes:

shortly after the turn of the millenium a person calling himself John Titor appeared in some internet chat rooms and announced that he was a time traveler from the year 2036. though most understandably regarded him as a hoax, the depth and general consistency of his story made him a sort of cult icon, and focus for debate about political, social and religious issues. he later vanished, presumably back to his own time. an internet search for John Titor will get you tons of fascinating reading material.

notable elements of Titor's story include: he came here to pick up an early model IMB computer with an interesting defect that future programmers wanted to study, that his time machine utilizes two miniature black holes and fits in an ordinary car or truck (sorry, not a Delorean!), that the time travel 'grandfather paradox' does not apply because the multiple-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, and that civil war will erupt in the U.S. between left and right wing factions, becoming dramatic by 2008 and ultimately leading to a global nuclear war which will destroy half the world's population in 2015.

John sited personal ethical standards and the divergence of 'worldlines' (multiple universes) as the reason why he could and would not predict details about specific future events. he stated that he did not expect people to believe him, but rather consider the significance of their own actions in light of the grim future that he describes. like in the Christmas Carol story, we have the ability to change our world.

Thomas Frank is the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" a compelling book about how a great many working-class American consistently vote against their own economic interests. angry, disenfranchised, religious working class Americans tend to see themselves as a persecuted minority, at the hands of vaguely defined 'liberal elite' that pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, and Bill O'Reily identify as their oppressors. the central point of Frank's book is the way in which economic issues (such as unions, free trade, corporate power,) are erased from the vocabulary of this right-wing backlash, in favor of angry smears about cultural issues (lattes, Volvos, etc.) and the obvious hot-button issues of abortion and general sexual morality. thus a hard-working middle American blames not corporate power when his pension is cut, but instead the general moral decline of society.

the phrases 'gravity of discontent' and 'inherit the whirlwind' were borrowed directly from this book as this song spilled out of me. I hope that's ok with Mr. Frank. (I assume that if Titor was angry about the song from the year 2036, he would have come back to stop me from writing it by now...) anyway, I thought that the 'gravity' concept as a social/emotional issue intertwined nicely with the black holes used in Titor's time machine and the pandemonium he describes.

also there's one other little thing, but it's a secret. Shhh, they'll sue. special prize if you can guess. your hint is: 1980.