Apocalypse Poem by Ashok Vajpeyi

The old world of
gods had died before
I was born and
ever since I've listened
to the endings of legends
about the end
of this wonderful world
without understanding
a word without
desiring to save it or
striving to reshape it
to my heart's desire.
I've never cared to
fight for it because
I'm not a warrior because
wars bore me besides
I never learnt to pray.

I know nothing about this
world other than the
unwithered compassion
of my mother and
the unwithered passion
of my lover, I've
never known of anything
else worth knowing
in this world.

But sometimes my innocent
eyes had patience enough to
penetrate the weary wombs
of nights to where
the heavens howled and
the dead gods moaned
in grim compassion.

And sometimes my straw
light soul was potent enough
to show me visions of
shapes and rocks dancing
to the bloodred music of
birth in the
alert daylight.

And now at last
I know that when,
When we all perish in
that inevitable apocalypse
the nearby heap of things will
become quick and human
and our end will
be beautiful for
those heaps of things.