Once all’s said and done,
time will have made its last run
with Earth, Moon, and Sun.
From rooster’s first call
to sundial shade’s final fall,
the last toll stops all.
Then, without warning,
the sun won’t greet the morning
with its adorning.
No more day or night.
Foresight as clear as hindsight—
both gone with the light.
Heaven’s gentle rain
no longer relieves foul bane
on mercy’s campaign.
No roads will diverge;
ages hence will have no verge;
no sighs will emerge.
No more you and me.
There’ll be nothing as lovely
as a lass or tree.
Godot sans chauffeur.
Bartleby will not defer.
No king, horse, or spur.
Great grandfather’s clock,
once time’s no longer ad hoc,
will refuse to tock.
Memories are naught.
All is gone that once was taught,
fallen to onslaught.
Gone, too, malls and schools.
There’s no need, indeed, for tools.
No more rules or fools.
Zombies and vampires?
Gone. No brain or blood desires.
No Reaper or pyres.
Fear and pleasure vain.
No song singing love’s refrain,
nor of life or pain.
There’s nothing in store,
for those our forebearers bore
will exist no more.
No thinking. We’re not.
No philosophical rot
nor any damned spot.
Nothing more storm-tossed,
science and religion lost;
no one to accost.
Time will not forestall,
for all creatures, great or small,
the Reaper’s masked ball.
Today may be all.
Don’t go dry to that good pall
after the last call!
Ken Gosse usually writes light, rhyming verse filled with whimsy and humor. Sometimes it’s darker. First published in First Literary Review-East in 2016, since then by Pure Slush, Spillwords, The Ekphrastic Review, Lothlorien Review, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.
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