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Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: Welcome to the Future

by

This week movie fans of more than one generation celebrated a special day: Back to the Future Day. It’s taken a while (nearly 30 years), but at last the day that Marty McFly travelled to in the Delorean in Back to the Future II,  October 21, 2015, has arrived (in fact it’s now past).

I hereby dedicate this week’s Poetry Friday to this anniversary.

The poster shows a teenaged boy coming out from a nearly invisible DeLorean with lines of fire trailing behind. The boy looks astonishingly at his wristwatch. The title of the film and the tagline "He was never in time for his classes... He wasn't in time for his dinner... Then one day... he wasn't in his time at all" appear at the extreme left of the poster, while the rating and the production credits appear at the bottom of the poster.

Why, McFly?

Hey, McFly:

the future is here

the future is now.

But I have to ask:

when you sent yourself

thirty years into the future

did it seem

so very far away

that it was safe to predict

that future world?

Well, I was there in 1985

but I’m still here now

and what I want to know, McFly,

is

where’s my hoverboard?

(Poem Copyright Sally Murphy, 2015)

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

sallymurphy.com.au