Apocalypse Eleven

 

Those opulent towers,

resplendent,  portentous,

came toppling through the turbulent air

without meaning

 

Those airships came

with vicious plans

rammed them without a care,

irrespective of screaming

 

One wonders what these men believed,

so intent were they on terror.

Skewed lives and raging spite: How not be aware

such evil, by its very touch, corrupts?  Or did they lack all feeling?

 

The rain bore down. The wreckage

cooled, and firemen picked listlessly at fragments:

a hopeless cause. They stood and stared.

Still unbelieving. The world they knew was reeling.

 

Midnight came, an Apocalypse, and fear,

with seven heads, tread heavily,

a monster loosened from its lair,

anticipations fierce and fiery, a demonic ending.

 

Down beneath that shattered hulk

of steel and stone, three thousand lives

lay crushed, and on the stairs:

a frozen nightmare impends my dreaming.

 

But smoke and poison clouds must yield.

The City gags upon that swill, but breathes:

wrestles with the grip that held it. Then from despair,                                                                           intuits hope, elicits cleaning;

 

Oh, what power dwells, a phoenix rising

adamant from its flaming foundry,

consigns barbarity to eternities of shame, and dares

to stand, and understand: it is time for healing.