AUDENESQUE

As I walked out one morning,
walking down Auden Street,
No crowds upon the pavement,
No sound of people’s feet.

The nightmare it had happened
And Time had run away.
Blake’s rose it had sickened,
No tomorrow...now...no today.

Jack had been eaten by the giant.
The fairy tale had turned Grimm.
History? A tale told by an idiot...
Good God? Nobody believed in him!

I looked, looked in the mirror
And nothing of me could I see?
Desert and Glacier laughed in my face
mocking: “To be. . .not to be!”

It was late, late in the evening,
The world we had known was gone.
And I the only ghost left living
To ponder how it all went wrong.


***


Riffing off of Auden's wonderful ballad...

As I Walked Out One Evening
W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973