No Turning Back Poem by Laurence Overmire

From a vantage below
You can see the anthill swallow the sun
The nature of the beast is to destroy
The ancient symbols foretell

The dying time

The vanishing of the moon
The burning of the sky
The last of the just has fallen in the desert
The flower wilts with no water at the root

Prepare for the night…

The cold darkness of the sea
Shall cover the treachery of the dissemblers
And comfort the quaking
Of the heartbreak Earth.


(Previously published in Burn, Summer 2000.)