The End of the World

The end of the world approaches.
We will go out in style,
luxury and decadence.
The sky will open like prison gates
iron grey, while below we drown
in gold, the manmade kind
that will never have the value
of Old Sunshine.

Oh, misery-!
that this is to be our fate;
burnt from the earth
by rain and fire and drought,
as pestilence is burnt
from a cadavre,
as the mummy
is prepared.

But as the cogs are scoured,
I will sit, grave and still
in the last bar of Old Sunshine
and love as a virgin loves.
I will not see their starving faces,
nor hear their lurid screams;
I will close my eyes as
their architecture falls.

Our bridge of dreams will break,
swamped by golden, swollen seas.
There will be nothing left to give,
but the very last pure heart-
mine, beating.
And everything will cease
but your memory, trapped
in Old Sunshine.