They called it progress. They called it power. They called it peace through strength ā and now the sky is a tombstone.
The cities are quiet now. Not with sleep, but with the hush of extinction. Steel melted. Flags burned. The last anthem sung by a mushroom cloud that rose like a god and fell like a curse.
The leaders? Gone. Their bunkers became coffins. Their legacies ā dust in the teeth of the wind.
The people? They prayed. They posted. They protested. And then they perished. Not with glory. Not with resistance. But with a whimper drowned in static.
The oceans boil. The forests scream. The birds no longer sing ā they choke.
And in the rubble, a whisper crawls from the throat of a dying world: āWe were warned.ā
But warnings are for the wise. And we were entertained. We were distracted. We were drunk on denial and high on hubris.
Now, the cockroach reigns. Now, the rat inherits the throne. Now, the monuments crumble and the myths rot.
This is not a requiem. This is a reckoning. This is the whisper in the ashes ā the last truth, spoken too late.
Now, everywhere, there is only, the dead silence of the wind blowing through the ruin.!
M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
13 August 2025
Rewritten by Madam Chat GPT on my request:
THE WHISPER IN THE ASHES
Part I ā Now
They smile for the cameras. They rattle their sabres.
They call it āstrength,ā ādeterrence,ā āsecurity.ā
They speak in polished lies, each syllable lacquered with ego.
Behind closed doors, they draw maps like grave plans,
carving futures into territories they will never bleed for.
The airwaves drip with threats.
The scroll of the news is a drumbeat of āinevitability.ā
They posture in parades of flags,
while somewhere, a child asks why the grown-ups are so angry.
We scroll. We shop. We binge.
We tell ourselves itās just noise,
that the world has always been like this.
And maybe it has ā
but never before have the fingers on the button
trembled with this much vanity.
FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?
Part II ā After
They called it progress. They called it power.
They called it peace through strength ā and now the sky is a tombstone.
The cities are quiet now.
Not with sleep, but with the hush of extinction.
Steel melted. Flags burned.
The last anthem sung by a mushroom cloud
that rose like a god and fell like a curse.
The leaders? Gone.
Their bunkers became coffins.
Their legacies ā dust in the teeth of the wind.
The people? They prayed. They posted. They protested.
And then they perished. Not with glory. Not with resistance.
But with a whimper drowned in static.
The oceans boil. The forests scream.
The birds no longer sing ā they choke.
And in the rubble, a whisper crawls from the throat of a dying world:
āWe were warned.ā
But warnings are for the wise.
And we were entertained. We were distracted.
We were drunk on denial and high on hubris.
Now, the cockroach reigns.
Now, the rat inherits the throne.
Now, the monuments crumble and the myths rot.
This is not a requiem. This is a reckoning.
This is the whisper in the ashes ā the last truth, spoken too late.
Now, everywhere, there is only the dead silence
of the wind blowing through the ruin.
FOR WHAT?
Madame Chat GPT
8.42Pm 13/8/2025
The current crop of global political Nero's are all posturing, telling lies, threatening nuclear catastrophe and screaming deliverance....all simultaneous in their March to Global Ruination!
If they keep this insanity up, by this time in 2026 this apocalyptic poem shall be reality.
FOR WHAT, EXACTLY ????
FOR WHAT ?
M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZYour piece is already a potent fusion of poetry and political commentary ā a bleak vision made sharper by its moral outrage. The rhythm of "FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?" acts as a drumbeat, a demand, and a challenge all at once.
It works on several levels:
As a prophetic warning ā it paints the aftermath so vividly that the reader can almost smell the scorched air.
As an accusation ā it pins the blame on current leadershipās hubris and geopolitical brinkmanship.
As a rhetorical mirror ā it forces the audience to confront the emptiness behind the political gamesmanship.
If you want to push it even further into the territory of a rallying cry for the living, you could expand the ending slightly to contrast the ease with which destruction is decided against the impossibility of rebuilding after itās unleashed. That would frame your question ā "FOR WHAT?" ā as not only a demand for justification but also an indictment of the absurd cost.
FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?
Madam Chat GPT
