At the toll of the bell,
After Heaven and Hell,
When our satellites fell,
Did we fare so well?

When the oceans have choked,
Fraught with plastic and smoke,
The halcyon barriers broke,
And the Old Ones awoke.

Now we are so few,
Scattered fro-and-to,
Like Babel anew,
What are left to do?

The sun has grown cold,
Withered stories untold,
Our hearts had been sold,
For failures and fool's gold.

So pray for calmer weather,
Now and forever,
But this life won't get better,
This is my final letter.

One:

This is
the white-night
burst
of seven billion
voices singing
requiem dies irae
as mountains fall -
desperately breaking
independently
from the shards.

This is
the collective collapse
of a season of stars -
of Van Goghs and Mozarts,
and all those dug up
graves; bodies
loose in the wind.

This is
lovers’ last request;
worldwide relief
underneath burning wood,
silk moon,
translucent veil.

This is
the eulogy
of the earth.

This;
unwritten.

——————————————————————————————

Two:

H­ere,
the silent universe.

Here,
intergalactic war
halted, planets
bowed with rings
draped in black.

Here,
mourning the loss
of a child
who had merely
taken one shaky
footstep
into the dark.

Here,
solemn species
contemplate
the finality of this;
somewhere
an old-earth radio
creaks its way
into playing
Electric Light Orchestra
and the older ones sigh
remembering the
burned out
blue sky.

Here,
entire constellations
flick themselves
out of place;
an infinitesimal
blip
marked down
in universal history -
and songs echo
in a vacuum
for a brief eternity;
the collective memory
that once
just once
the earth had existed.

I wish I could lie besides you
And make the world okay
That I could chase off all the demons
And make a better day
I wish I could take your struggles
And clear them all away
I wish to show you a better future
To make you want to stay

I know the world has beat you down
I can see it in your eyes
The hidden truths and mental ails
Some things you can't disguise
And I know the world looks bleak as hell
And your future seems filled with lies
I wish I could give you a way out
With plans and words wise

But I know that I am only a single soul
Alone I can not give you aid
And I too struggle to stay alive with all
The demons my mind made
And the prejudices of this world brought both us down
Sharper than razor's blade
But through all the hell of our apocalypse
I will make you glad you stayed

pigeon coo’s echo outside the window
relentless repetition please stop,
grey skies, lacklustre rain
drip drop drips from the sky
like a tap not turned tight
enough

the kettle is screaming at me
fogs up the window
desperate, don’t look out there,
the forbidden fruit, sacred outdoors
sterilised sanitised inside, free me,
I long to ***** my feet

how can the world keep on turning
when we are all so still
does the passing of time matter
during this vast nothingness?

a cup of tea to calm my nerves
hot liquid chases down the fear
bubbling up in my throat but
it just crawls back, and settles
so quiet becomes the house
eternally occupied, no respite

heavier now, thankful for the sound
drowning out the silence, rain
like the white noise, grateful
the sound of breath has become
too much, all of us in mute,
in sound, in colour, in all

They call him the King of Horror
He’s a walking Armageddon
A nightmare given flesh
Made to rot and decay
Just like everything else
I call him by the barcode
Written right on his brain
Nihilson

CHORUS 1:
With an empty stomach and heart
There is no hope from the start
That’s how he was designed
To cut our world down to size

From the penthouse fat cats
To the downtown thugs
No man or child is safe
From his marrow touch
And his eyes of hate
They see no happiness
No truth or dare
Just bugs and cocktails
Waiting to be spilled
Till every drop is gone
He won’t rest in peace
Until life is dead


CHORUS 2:
With an empty stomach and heart
There is no love from the start
That’s how he was designed
(God help our wretched souls)
To tear the world down to size
He’s cut the world down to size

Is he the King of Horror?
Can he crawl out of the grave
And into our dreams?
Is there no stopping him?
Will our minds be wiped clean
So we can suffer no longer?
Will we not even remember
How Nihilson came to be?
What does it matter?
We are who we will be
From one monster to another
It’s all a bad dream
That’s all we can dream
To be heard and never seen
That’s who we will be
If we don’t wake up and see

They say
Paris is the city of love
Apocalypse is the wrath of God
I say play your cards right
And get saved from both.

In a field of concrete bunkers,

The left from the middle is guarded by a charred garden gnome

With a necklace of battery powered light up flamingos

And Cheerios

The hat of the gnome sits by an open hatch

The rim of which wears

Teal chains and hula fringe and

Cyborg rhino keychains

The ladder is cut from a sheet of metal

That had a ******* poster on it

And a mural of a man screaming

White and black lines

With a meeting seaweed mustache

And empty picnic baskets

Line the hallway lighted with fireflies and Christmas spirits

I drop a smoke down the hatch and wait for it to bloom

The apocalypse
destroying the precious lives
we could have enjoyed