And that concludes the world.
Maybe there'll come a day
when newscasters around the globe
will speak these words - or something like
on radio and television -
or what will have succeeded them -
before they fade to black. And part of me
would like to be here then - tuned-in,
not just to hear the phrase,
but to have heard and seen
the stories that preceded it.
There's part of me
believes the ending might be
tranquil, fascinating - or plain boring:
the final evening going into night...
a family saloon that's running out
of juice on the last hill...
a planet peacefully
awaiting the last rites.
14 comments:
It would be the proverbial day of reckoning to be saying that phrase! May be if said with a smile it would be ok! Great write Dave!
Hank
'not with a bang, but with a whimper'. I don't know - and cannot believe that the media will be calm or dignified.
well i guess it would not be bad to be able to see the end of all...the concluding broadcast of this existence...and it be a whimper and not one final hollywood explosion...
When I turn on the news in the mornings I quite often say to my wife, “Let’s see if the world ended last night,” as if it wouldn’t be real unless the BBC told us so. I think you can only panic for so long. I remember a scene from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey where they fall into blackness, scream, continue to scream, scream a bit more and then stop screaming because nothing’s happened. In the seventies all the jokes were about how we would fill the four minutes we would find ourselves with before the bomb dropped but what about Lars von Trier’s Melancholia which was inspired by a depressive episode the director suffered and the insight that depressed people remain calm in stressful situations? After an initial panic, once people realised that the end was coming and there is no deep core drilling team ready to jump on a shuttle to save us, as in Armageddon, I do expect that, as in, Children of Men, a great many people would calmly sit and wait for the end. Where is there to run to? Oh, yes, there will the odd person capable of living every day as if it was their last but I’m sure they would be in the minority. We can rage against the dying of the light all we like but even anger burns out after a time. I think depression would reach pandemic proportions long before the end came.
I want to be there too. I wonder if there will be anyone left to say 'Hello, is there anyone there?'
LOL
Maybe we'll all find out on Dec 21st and on the 22nd when we're all still here doing the same ole same ole.. we'll know ;)
Ah..the end of the world. We are moving closer to it.
I can't imagine something like this would occur gently - not if there were a broadcast. Maybe at a time after broadcasts have ended; then perhaps there may be some gentle sighing sigh. But not, I think, if it comes at a time when there are still television transmitters. That said, the poem itself has a lovely cadence and feeling of nostalgia - for the way things were, perhaps, when the idea of an end brought togetherness. (Not sure that was ever really true though. Just don't know.) K.
Right, neither "a bang" nor " a whimper", this tranquillity at the end is a prospect I can truly share.
here you up-end the average view of such a day as a block-buster Hollywood noise-fest.
I like your conjectures, much better and would love to be there to discuss it with you, Dave.
Excellent investment of my time to visit you as ALWAYS!
Admiring Aloha from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral
> < } } (°>
I find this somehow very disquieting, but that's partly a tribute to how well you have written it
Nice image though I fear otherwise in the manner of the demise.
Who hasn't often thought about the same scenario? Usually prompted by a book, a film, or... a poem, like yours. Would I like to be there? Only if I get to survive. And if I get to say the phrase that will follow:
And that starts it anew. :-)
Greetings from London.
Wow, this is deep stuff!
Think I'd join you there Dave. I've often wondered what the end would be like, not out of idle curiosity, but of compassionate understanding...
Really interesting to contemplate, Dave. As for me, I prefer all to happen after I am long gone.
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