Seacoast of Bohemia:
The dreadful northern shore
Carries the energy of February,
Winter gales drive clouds to warmer lands,
Force blue-skied stillness
To reign over the wave-battered
Shoreline of rocks,
Rocks so cold that even
The salt-water of the northern sea
Clings to their surface
In wedding-veil strands of ice.
"We need another Earth,
A different one"
As imagination's eyes course
That narrow edge of rough white sand
Which calls itself Bohemia's Beach.
"We need another Earth,
A different one"
As the salt-spray roars across
The white-beard winter rocks.
"We need another Earth"
Even as the eyes catch sight
Of a pair of bare feet,
Toes crinkling the tropical sand
Of a placid land.
The beach is quiet,
Small waves rolling lightly
Against the tan-brown summer sand
As the naked male figure walks
In the silence of an unshrouded corpse,
Lacking even the energy of a ghost.
Memory flashes
Like lightning in the night
Or the fire
That burnt the tropical prison
That was bombed,
Almost by accident,
In the war without winners
That creased the earth
With fresh rivers of poison
And freed this barren body
To walk a shoreline
Frozen colder than a tomb
In the tropical sun.
The eyes show no tears,
No sadness,
Nothing.
"Sometimes you forget how to cry;
Years ago, I forgot.
After last night,
I find I am safe
From ever remembering."
Serene as death,
Waves dance in flashes
Of sunlight and chant
"We need a new Earth,
For the old Earth has passed on"
Even as children,
Naked as life,
Capture innocence from a beachfront sun
And Eve and Lilith smile together
And conspire
And compare the innocence of pleasure.
Blank eyes touch the placid landscape
As the Last Man
Dies
On the beachfront of barren paradise
Without a single injury
Or bodily illness.
"We need a new Earth"
As the frozen waves touch
Bohemia's shoreline again,
Cold and alive,
Cold and alive,
"For the old Earth and old Heaven"
Live as a fish,
Tossed rudely ashore,
Shivering in the sand
Between two Bohemian rocks,
"Have passed on"
Leaving only the ashes
Of a fisherman's fire on the beach,
The primal dancing children
Having burnt to death
With Eve and Lilith in their innocence,
As the pain deadened eyes
Of the last man
Closed,
Having seen for too many moments
Tranquillity without peace.
Carrion birds pick at his remnants
As gulls pick earth-shattered fish
On the colder northern coastline.
Cut off, in a cold salty pool
Between the rocks an ocean perch lives,
Gasping for survival.
The surf pounds,
Echoing the chill of life.
Salt-water burns at open wounds
As the icy winds freeze a fisherman's tears.
"New Earth, New Earth,"
Pounds the surf,
As the stench of tropical death
Is washed back to the recesses of the mind,
Crisply, serenely drifting seaward in the tide.
