12.22.12
No jagged bits of crust were thrust up
through the prairie's black gumbo
to give us cataclysmic mountain views.
Road noise reverberates
off the fake brick walls along
both sides of West Parker Road,
same as it ever was. Oak leaves fall
collecting in a coarse brown snow
atop the cut-for-winter beige
of Bermuda and St. Augustine.
The holly fruit burns plump and red
for Cardinals and Jays.
through the prairie's black gumbo
to give us cataclysmic mountain views.
Road noise reverberates
off the fake brick walls along
both sides of West Parker Road,
same as it ever was. Oak leaves fall
collecting in a coarse brown snow
atop the cut-for-winter beige
of Bermuda and St. Augustine.
The holly fruit burns plump and red
for Cardinals and Jays.
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Author's Note
Another underwhelming apocalypse.
I'm sure someone will decipher another text that predicts our demise real soon. The History Channel needs new content.
Other stories by Gary Hardaway
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nice. The notion of End here is pulled through the Judeo-Christian notion of messianic time. I had some fun yesterday trying to figure out how other ways of thinking might play out. They came to parallel things, just not as elegantly stated.
Though my favorite related meme is from Sun Ra:
This is already after the end of the world: don't you know that yet?
I especially like reading this in tercet form. Good piece, Gary.
A fitting nod to much ado. *
Thank you for your comment and reading, Stephen.
Thank you, Sam. The tercets seemed to leaven this and lively it up a bit.
Thanks, Mathew. Religious zeal has often fueled end-time hysteria but now that TV has deep interest in calamity, I expect the world to be about to end every couple years or so.
Another vote for the tercets. My favourite lines,
"The holly fruit burns plump and red
for Cardinals and Jays".
It snowed all day and the sky and the air and the ground were the same color and, for a few moments, I believed in Fimbulwinter. Even after I stopped believing, I understood why the old Norsemen imagined the end of days in unending winter. We spent the last day of the world together snug indoors and ate potato chips and kissed at the stroke of apocalypse.
Thank you, Carol. Not sure where the holly and birds came from. Must be those terrible angels.
Snow! I vote for that to be the way the world ends- not with a whimper but a hush. Thank you, Frankie.
Great. *
Thank you, Chris.
Great visuals et music.
Thanks, Joe
I would have enjoyed that mountain view...*
we go on...not as exciting as an apocalypse, but more endurable.*
Yes, the topography could use some elevation. Thanks, Joani.
The extension of the ordinary is definitely preferable to oblivion. Thank you, Gary.
Love the visual last two lines.