In The Year 2424 Science Fiction

The air is foetid and breathing is so difficult. The open window allows floating debris, To spread its pungent staleness over all. It’s a difficult struggle for sunlight to shine Through the clouded fog we must inhale. I see more pallid faces of people at the portal. Where I read trees and flowers once grew, Is now an industrial slum with a thick oil slick, Oozing across the land, dead trees pillaged. A cemetery for what once was, a thing called beauty. Nothing that can be described that way still exists. Farms had to die in the regal name of progress. Oceans of fish polluted and poisoned, whales extinct. No sand left on our beaches, Coral reefs destroyed. Shorelines stinking and black, streams contaminated. Waters have risen and islands sunk into the seas. A novelty to see one of the remaining birds, Concrete replaced something they used to call grass. Praise the pharmaceutical manufacturers Producing pills with vitamins to feed us and keep us alive.