Or-well

A nuclear end with an Australian viewpoint

I'm shivering in the afterglow

Surrounded by the early snow

That laps at Melbourne's frozen feet,

And sheltering from the withering blast

Of hail and sleet, in late November,

Trying to remember what

The sun was like before the war,

That no-one felt, that no-one saw

That wiped a memory out before

The rocket sputtered off to Mars

And left us wondering what to do

About the rats, that roam the streets,

Infest the yards,

And make their nests in motor cars...

 

Motor cars that rust in line,

Incredible things from another time

That must be future, can't be past;

The pain of knowing what we lost

Is just too much assimilation...

Let it be enough to say

That Sydney Harbour glows at night,

A soft green, all-pervading light,

And if the Harbour Bridge was ever

Anything beside a dream

A sudden flash awoke a scream

In driver's throats, in different notes,

That had no time to issue forth

Before the Bridge they travelled on,

Their motor cars, and they, were gone;

 

So if a million photographs

Have faded out to nothingness,

A million family trees of note

Have fallen to the ground,

It only goes to show the imbecilic

Fickleness of man, so tell me

How do I begin to shut the factory down?

 

I'm staggering up an icy street

Trying to disregard the feet

That ice and cold are turning black,

And searching for a hidden store,

The food I lack has all been looted.

Men are shooting, men are shooting men

Are running round in packs,

In self defence, for nothing lacks

A moral if you search for one;

I've even seen a woman eat

Her baby's flesh, out in the road

In Collins Street,

And gag on it, and choke it out,

And wash it down with Cooper's stout.

 

Why was Melbourne left to die

Uncivilised and haltingly in

Soul destroying self-destruction....

If the bomb's eruption had not

Decimated Dandenong, but travelled on

And blasted Bourke's black heart along the

Soul of Swanston's timeless beat,

At least the end would be much neater....

 

Sitting round and waiting for the end are many

Troubled men, in every bar

That has a stock,

And brandy flows, and whisky goes

The product of a countryside that

Lies beneath a boiling sea,

A Scotland, name that used to be...

 

But in the gutter lies a man who

Died just half an hour before

His mate could find a dying priest

To say a muttered prayer:

'You always were a tricky swine

You pommie b*****d,' said the man

And shed a tear of self reproach

Before he turned

To leave him there.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Marie]

This is a dreadful thing...one thinks surely the world can't end like that. It would be better in a burst of flame...or even if the Rapture came...

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

This is one apocolyptic vision that I hope we never live to see. Nonetheless, your words were perfectly writ, extoling a darkness that we should all dread.

Linda Marie Van Tassell

[Wildfleour]

David - so dark and full of dread. When will I see your happy side/ feelings....(smile)