The Exodus

I think it began with the airline strike,

No planes, not in, nor out,

The pilots didn’t know who to blame,

‘Not us,’ they said, ‘old Scout!’

‘It must be a Union thing,’ they said,

But then the trains had stopped,

And the truckies set their trucks in a ring

That the diesel tax be dropped.

 

A city of half a million

Where everyone stayed at home,

Petrol ran out at the bowsers, so

There was nowhere left to roam,

‘It could only happen in Westernport,

This City of the Damned,’

The people moaned, and the airwaves groaned,

And the Internet was jammed.

 

People were phoning the government

But they weren’t returning calls,

The Mayor had gone on a golfing trip,

They said, to Cedar Falls,

The ‘News’ had run out of newsprint

By the end of the second week,

So the paper stands were empty, and

The Internet was weak.

 

The ISP’s said sorry, but

Our Networks are closing down,

There’s been some trouble with hackers

From some place in another town,

The radio went on the blink

And the TV screens were snow,

The people gathered on pavements

Wandering round, no place to go!

 

The blackout lasted another week,

Then the city’s power failed,

The engineers had scratched their heads,

‘We have to get this nailed!’

But then the water had stopped its flow

Through half a million pipes,

And the fear in the city began to grow

As thieves took over the night.

 

Before the strike, the news had been

That the Yanks were back in space,

Right back up there with the Russkies

With the Chinese, saving face,

They’d each gone on an exploring binge,

The Yanks had gone to Mars,

While the Russkies tackled Saturn, and

The Chinese, out to the stars.

 

We’d heard no more, the airwaves dead

With just the noise from space,

Crackling through transistors as

More women carried Mace,

When Sunday morn, on the fourth weekend,

They got a genny fired,

Pedalling on an ancient bike,

Tooks turns, until they tired,

 

There was just enough for a laptop, though

Its batteries had been flat,

They brought a flickering picture up

To see where they were at,

They hooked it up to a satellite

And they called up Google Earth,

And ranged the view wherever they could,

But all they found was dearth.

 

The land lay waste on continents

That had housed a billion souls,

The cities and towns were quiet, as if

The people had turned to trolls,

America was a vacant place

While Europe lay serene,

And even the seas had ceased to move,

Not a breaker to be seen!

 

We live in the city of Westernport

The City of the Damned,

There isn’t a thing alive out there,

No man to till the land,

And people are starving in the streets,

I think we can’t go on…

‘But what of the rest of the human race?’

‘They disappeared! They’re gone!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[emmy bon]

nice one, it pictures the time a state face that damned period of hardship in all aspect of the economy. the struggle of life is a continuous process, we pray for change. i enjoyed reading it sir, it makes me wanna be patriotic for the betterment of my nation. well penned sir and well done.

[Lisa Ring]

So true, so true! We are so reliant on consumption that we are simply parasites. What do we do when there is no host, but curl up and die? We had better start giving back before there is nothing left to take.

[MachinaWriter]

This is an amazing poem! It tells a story so well that I can't help but be reminded of a few poems by Ray Bradbury. The way it paints a picture of this city and the struggle of those within it is astounding.