The gibbous moon hangs over the Earth,
death descending upon a dying reality.
A shovelful of ashes,
this dance of futility,
nothing left behind but fallen soot.

Dearest brother, we are at the last point,
it seems, and who would have expected
such a ridiculous finale,
this eschatological confrontation
with the black summit of existence?

O impotent little man,
in your melancholy selfishness,
how you distress me
with this great, surging silence,
the oppressiveness of solitude.

Despair is disease,
but I can no longer mourn you.
Your remorse is indulgent,
self-forgiving, superstitious.

The pain of relentless doom
in no way ennobles you;
your retreat into suffering
but a complicity in guilt.

Stretch forth your wretched head to
say the words you cannot say;
a contortion in the throat,
a choking on each syllable.

Do not be deceived.

Beyond all else
there is nothing more human,
than these last, few moments
of the searing white heat
of the God we cannot prove,
of the broken mirror image
of your imminent demise.

Passing beyond all morality
oozes the wound of your existence:
to decry the winnowing of meaning,
the destruction of freedom,
the end of everything.