by Richard Meyer
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| a sandwich board pessimist proclaims the apocalypse |
the sludgy oceans rising higher,
the sky an ashen winding sheet
no place to run, nowhere to hide,
a species bent on suicide,
extinction on a dead-end street
maybe a plague, or flood, or war
or greedy scoundrels gulping more
on a planet wrecked, made obsolete
or tumbling toward us through the void
a stone and iron asteroid
the size of old Minoan Crete
no matter what the fatal blow,
from up above or down below
no refuge in our self-deceit
it’s doom and doom and doom from here
the die is cast, the end is near,
a final reckoning complete
Richard Meyer, recipient of the 2012 Robert Frost Farm Prize, lives in Mankato, MN. His book of poetry Orbital Paths was a silver medalist winner in the 2016 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.