Apocalypse of the Miserable Men

Who breathes the last breath

when all the world’s

oxygen has depleted? people clawing

and tearing at each other’s

throats, hoping to spare themselves

and damn the rest

to unimaginable death; sharp,

nailed fingers dig trenches

into the skin, carving it

all the way down the throat and chest

to sever the stomach

which was starving

and needy

and sad.

With big bright billboards advertising

trips to mars, the earthlings riot

and rip at the fabric of reality,

chanting down with the rich,

down with the sober,

down with the anyman

who betrayed his sons

and grandsons

to swaddle the beards and bellies

of the wealthy as they sacrifice

their kin.

The paint on the walls peels

and stings the eyes of those left

alive to see, and the nostrils

of those left to sense

the failing of the world, sour,

and rancid, and sticking

to the skin, tucking deep into the pores

like misery and defeat.

Cry why the world

Why; the world

Why abandon us in a cascading hurricane

of fear and hunger

and loneliness,

where the friends who claim to be

my brothers cry for their fathers,

the fathers who killed their mothers

and hung their hosiery

on telephone wires

so that we could mourn them.

Mourn the mothers

Mourn the world

Mourn the part we played

in our own downfall

Because it must have been us,

Why else

would we die in piles?