The last photograph

 

These bountiful fields

now left unconcealed,

unclaimed, no flags proudly

proclaiming them in anyone's name.

For names now sit in the dusty ashes

of what used to exist.

No gravestones, just dust,

and the grasses expand

to reclaim the parched land.

The scorched earth.

The deserted sands.

These fallen islands.

 

And the clocks of the universe turn...

 

But no-one hears them tick.

 

And in the fields where cities once sat,

lies a photograph, and

a Geiger counter that clicks,

the only reminders, that humanity

once used to exist.

 

The last photograph.

 

Radiation speckled

selfie screams,

influencer wet dream,

still craving attention,

chasing likes as time runs out

and the end sears over the vision.

Crowds panic in circled fear,

flocking as the light starts to dim,

birds to the roost, and night is falling.

 

Blossoming light of fission.

A mushrooming fireball,

fierce heat. A fumbled

nuclear football.

Burnt tissue vapour

No paper trail to follow,

the cookie crumbles

as man falls to the roll of a dice

and the cameras no longer roll

for there will be no news tomorrow

as memory dies.

 

Bright light,

then

darkness.

Endless

darkness

and then

 

nothing

 

but night

and a

Polaroid

memory

for no-one

to find.

The last

photograph

left behind,

 

a stray.

 

A

reminder

that life once

wandered

these fields,

and

could

be so

 

unkind.