TIME MACHINE MARK 2

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32394, 5 September 1970, Page 12

TIME MACHINE MARK 2

(By

WHIM WHAM)

. . . Through all the debate ran the theme that technology was out of hand, and that man must stay in control or be the prisoner of the machine. But which man—-the official, the politician, the philosopher, the community leader? . . . the human crisis . . . government control . . . education ... a new world order of a new ethic or even a new religion . . . —James Reston, of the “New York Times,” reporting on a meeting of eminent Americans at Aspen, Colorado. | A Man can live in the Present Like a Prisoner in a Cell. It isn’t all THAT unpleasant, So long as They feed him well, When the Door is locked behind him On the Corridors of the Past, And the last Place you’ll find him Is Where you found him last. A Window high on the Wall there, Glass that’s murky (and barred), Is a Man sufficiently tall there, To see What’s out in the Yard? Can he haul his Chin to the Sill, Sir, Hang by his Finger-nails, And peer at the Future, till, Sir, His Grip or his Courage fails? A Man shut up in the Present Must pass the Time, somehow. It’ll pass of Itself, for Peasant Or Poet, from THEN to NOW, But Reading assists the Process, Sleeping is useful, fob; Creative Work engrosses The happily gifted Few. A Man in this Present State, Sir, Can lose his Cool, and yell, Or rattle the Window-grate, Sir, Of History’s narrowing Cell, A Gale of Centuries gusting, The Doors behind slammed tight! Out there, what Rockets thrusting Blind Snouts into the Night?