Monday, September 16, 2019

The Dance of Death



There is barely time
to make it to the bunker.
I hesitate, before closing the hatch,
for one last look at the sky.

Everywhere, in these last days,
they have been doing the dance of death,
their smiles grimaces of denial.
The Third World rose,
as the Third World knows,
the warnings too dire
to be believed.
We watched in horror,
the madcap gaiety of the rich, macabre,
as the planet burned and seethed.

They say the earth will tilt
on its axis,
and topple some species off.
The ocean is swallowing the coast,
roaring through the mountain pass.
Mother Nature will  soon  be
free of us at last.

What few are left straggle
with burning feet and hooves
through an apocalyptic landscape.
All the prophecies were truths.

We lost our minds for a time
and forgot what we once knew:
You cant eat, drink or breathe money.
We have Eternity to rue.

One last look, for remembering.
I have supplies for not one year.
I have no way to fend them off
if the angry hordes come near.


for Izy's prompt at Real Toads: the Fallout Shelter. Oy.




13 comments:

  1. Very powerful writing. Bleak doesn't describe.

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  2. This is so dark. You went totally hopeless on this one. Who knows what the end will be like? With all the hungry hordes...

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  3. An old adage ... the wealthy will never allow their wealth to be voted away.

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  4. I like the focus on "last looks"...though this piece is a bit dark in tone, I think you pulled it off very well. Your word pairings and images come together nicely to really frame up a story and a narrator. Well done and viva la!!!!

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  5. Looks like the rich tumbled with us all. Only Mother Nature could be coping with this and even her just soso I am sure.
    ..

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  6. Humans are so vain that they choose not to fit in with the rest of world which it sees as theirs to make use of regardless of consequences, but will blame everything and everyone else for the failure of planet Earth.

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  7. A truly apocalyptic scene. One that feels to close to comfort.

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  8. I like the way you’ve started and ended with that last look at the sky, Sherry, which is so poignant and frightening. I was terrified by the lines:
    ‘We watched in horror,
    the madcap gaiety of the rich, macabre,
    as the planet burned and seethed’.

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  9. So vulnerable ... I thought you might be tempted to forego shelter and go dance with the burning elk.

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  10. You cant eat, drink or breathe money.
    We have Eternity to rue.

    Nice!

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  11. I wonder if it would be worth to wait those extra days in a life like that. Better to be eaten by the beasts above.

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  12. "We lost our minds for a time
    and forgot what we once knew:
    You cant eat, drink or breathe money.
    We have Eternity to rue."

    What a terrible truth to admit.

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  13. The Third World rose,
    as the Third World knows,
    the warnings too dire
    to be believed.

    I love these lines.. a kind of poem within a poem.

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