After

Day One The bomb when it fell sent the planet to hell With unrestrained retaliation The damage was done and the end had begun With no hope of human salvation I woke with a scream from that God awful dream And took my wife into my arms My thoughts were of lust but she crumbled to dust And she didn’t respond to my charms _____ Week Two The landscape is stark for the ash cloud is dark And the grass doesn’t grow any more Few creatures can feast since the fire from the east Made nothing as good as before Then came acid rain, that again and again Burned our skin til it was raw But if there’s an upside, we now can go outside The rain doesn’t burn anymore _____ Year Three The sidewalks I walked, where good neighbours talked Are tangled with undergrowth, new Those neighbours are gone but the heat lingers on In an atmosphere no longer blue The place that we once called ‘The city’ Is now thick with ferns, shrubs and trees As I made a sound, a deer stood its ground For nowadays no beast ever flees From what I can see, he eats better than me My nutrition comes out of a can This jungle now covers this land, sea to sea And nothing is scared of a man _____ Year Ten Surviving the blast gave the old man a laugh Until the the Big C hit his bones His loss has cut Earth’s population in half I buried him with the unknowns So now I’m the one to relate what was done And document how man survived An earnest presumption that soon came unspun Ash shadows cannot be revived _____ Year Twenty Who might have guessed that the jabs in my chest Would go unattended by drugs My diet, I guess, would never impress As I eat mostly baked beans and bugs _____ Year — who’s counting? So, this has been me; last man standing My journey and journal now done I leave this world to its rebranding A process that’s long since begun It seems I’ve been less than observant For with these last breaths I have seen That I, the last human, shall bid my farewell To a new world that’s vibrant and green