The Prospect Behind Us

Like a pantomime villain
Or hooded mugger
Our future is behind us
Creeping up unseen
Beladen with chickens
Coming home to roost
Bulging briefcases of dog-eared
Accounts to be reckoned with
Beneficent sacks of serendipity
And whatever's coming to us.

Whichever direction we look in
The traumatic thaumaturge
Is always behind us
Whilst would-be meddlers
In history's melodramas
Scream hysterical indecipherable caveats
As our befuddled faces peer.
It has no reflection in life's rear view mirror
And never shows up on the backdrop
Of our mindless
Selfies of self-consciousness.

We don't back away from the future
We just back into it
And when it arrives
We deny that the ships have come in
Or pretend that the tawdry eagles have landed
With feathers intact
Or try to send it packing
With ears full of exhausted fleas
Whilst we gaze into the hollows
Of the dark auditorium
Struggling to perceive what hides in past light.

And if through shifting scenes
We nimbly avoid fate's sudden trapdoor
We can't slink off into the wings
Unanchored by its haunting shadow
Or the gelled light that leaks
Fuzzily focused from out of frame.
We can't step forward beyond proscenium play
Into knowledge.

For all our props and make-up
Idiots' tales and pyrotechnics
We are puppets without strings
And always, ever, becoming from behind.