One Minute To Midnight

Trying out a new form: Sestina poem. M.A.D world. Inspired by '99 Luftballoons'. Image from 'Watchmen' Chapter XII.

There were no laughs left in the world,

As the clock hand jolted to twelve, to

Point at the blinding light that scorched our souls

Burying us beneath our broken laws.

My love, you could not imagine,

The suffering that those planes did cause.

 

You cannot charge one though with the cause;

All of them are to blame for this ruined world.

For not one of us ever imagined

That our lungs would be choked so soon, to

Remind us that the opposition bound in out laws

Was not power enough to stop their treacherous souls.

 

Yes darling, people would worship those foolish souls

And trust that they were devoted to the cause

To remain faithful to our nuclear laws.

But with each lie that was told to the world,

The more deserts were plagued in secret too.

And their wallets became as heavy as they’d imagined.

 

If you had seen those metal monsters fly, imagine

Praying for those thousands of ignorant souls.

Those on their routine journeys to work, to

Innocent ones scurrying in the streets that would cause

Us to remember that children were our sunflowers,

Diminished among those corrupt, winter laws.

 

Yes love, all of us survivors remember those laws.

The ones that were meant to keep us safe, imagine

Us dreaming of our once luxurious world

Instead of a platform of scratched bones for our souls

To reflect on their consuming greed that caused

Those mushrooms to rise with our humanity too.

 

Return now darling to those golden memories to

Protect you from the searing pain of our broken laws.

It was pure selfish havoc that these rulers caused

While blinded by greed, they forced us to imagine

That they had no choice, “a last resort”, they

Would say, as we cleaned up our blood drenched world

 

My love, the silken world you knew has changed, to

Bury our leftover souls beneath our withered laws.

You cannot imagine the suffering those planes did cause.