What's that? A
Glow on the edge, with
Smoke rising cloudward.
Renewed hope,
I trudge forward
Through the waste. Alas,
Disappointment awaits,
Since I have only found the
Sacrificial zone.
Cinders and ashes,
Bone and smoke,
The engines and the
Hidden furnaces where
Our erstwhile
Commodities were
Forged. Now spewing forth
Chaotically, yet no less
Uselessly than before,
While the former things,
Divided and mute,
Serve still to distract.

After the deluge, the waste; or rather,
The wastes, the
Mountains of *******, of
Detritus,
Bits and Pieces of the
Disassembled past,
Presented now in
Disordered heaps that
I tread upon carefully, ever
Watchful of sinkholes.
The horizon shows
No end yet, merely
Silent noise.

At the center lies not the
World tree, holding up
Everything,
But instead a vacuum, into which
Rush the broken pieces of things,
Torn apart by the
Centripetal force
Of a chronic
Absence.

I think you do not recognize it
For you have become used to it,
And internalized its patterns.
Everything is falling apart,
But not simultaneously,
And at different rates;
So you may pretend
To find stability
In the rhythm
Of failure.

If it's never too late,
Is it sometimes
A little late?

How do you tell
The difference?

The forms of things
Are ever in flux
On their margins,
But once in a long while,
Solid turns to liquid,
And there is a small window
To act,
To change
The boundaries,
As former things pass away,
And new ones come into being.

How do you live
In a broken world
And not talk about
How broken it is?