UDEME RALPH

    I see an abyss the size of eternity, planted in the heart of man, a horrible hollow in the core of mortals. I behold a vast edgeless gap in the midst of beings, a black hole taking rest in the soul of souls. I speak not of a poetic hole, nor of some imagined pit of hell. I speak only of reality, of what I’ve seen and felt: things too real to be unreal.     There is a world without end, em ptiness without limit, in the belly of men. Believe me. A hollow such that eyes have never seen, deep as Satan’ final pit, rich with the stench of all that is rotten and gone.

At her grave we stand and mourn, And think of the days of her youth, When inventions were few, When guns were still new, When prudence was still precious, And men hadn’t yet the heart of beasts Evil has unseated reason, Humanness lost in the abyss Of greed and rotten isms Sound souls have fallen away from the simple byways  Of truth and commonsense Our hands made the guns, Our labs nursed the bombs, And our leaders helped to launch the two wars that marred the world. Once we knew peace and bliss And dreamt of big and lofty things Once we sailed into strange new worlds Vast lands of gold, sugar, and corn. Then the revolution came: Machines worked harder than men, Homes of smoke littered the globe, Cars and trains bade bicycles bye, Houses towered into the sky, And knowledge peaked like a plague. Then the awful warming came: Sings of an impending terrible end, Green house effect; ice melted away Flood and famine, th...