I don’t reveal my name and neither
do I don on my several disguises;
For I am not afraid of these times,
But I know we are cutting it close.
I have been traveling through things
I shouldn’t be; horrors you cannot
Imagine have I gone lopsided upon.
I have lobotomized man & atom;
Discovered metaphysical darknesses
No other scientist dares investigate.
But because of past fidelities no one
Takes my honest vow to avowal them
Of the future—I mean, of the wars
That would be their future, had they
Me to make sure only they had
The swiftest particles to
Conflagrate—I mean, congratulate—
To accelerate the end times with.
Oh, how the earth was made by it.
Oh, how I could love you in the darkness;
But lost in the symbol of myself, couldn’t
Hear your alarm like the end of it all;
And so, I will destroy the earth because
You do not love or trust me enough.
Because you refuse to be healed by me,
I destroy all that we are: everything forever.
I know my verse could use a trick or two;
But I’m more versed in sundering,
And words are a gathering together that
Only sunder when pertaining to ideas:
For what I renew is not new attachments
To right or wrong;
But a clean slate for space to make what
It will with what we were.
-- Galen Cunningham has been published or is forthcoming in Literary Yard, The Creativity Webzine, Blue Unicorn, Ink In Thirds, and Sparks of Calliope. He lives in the foothills of Colorado.