Cataclysm

A cold, smooth, icy blackness
Is penetrated by pinpoints of light and the silhouettes of giants.
Bridges were built to span the empty
And to provide a way to and from
The now and ever
and the never now.
The lights dwindle and go out.
Puttering slowly to a stop the machine of life tips its heart out.
Thousands of starving, dying flies feast,
And in turn consume themselves.
Green trees overhang the overpass.
Corpses swing from the roots.
Not the corpses of men,
But the corpses of cars.
The people who were left abandoned their cars, their shoes.
They took their journey to the hills.
In the hills they remain
Tempted, but too afraid to succumb.

The dogs wander, on their backs ride the toddlers
Brave enough to escape the cold, smooth, icy blackness
of the subterranean lakes.
One day the parents will awake from their soiled dreams
and return to the surface,
But when they do they will pass their children who have grown
And are on their way down
To the cold, smooth, icy blackness of cities built on lakes
Hundreds of feet below the corpses of cars.