Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE END OF THE WORLD, by THOMAS MCGRATH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE END OF THE WORLD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The end of the world: it was given to me to see it
Last Line: Postpones the end of the world: in which we live forever
Subject(s): God; Judgment Day; End Of The World; Doomsday; Fall Of Man


The end of the world: it was given to me to see it.
Came in the black dark, a bulge in the starless sky,
A trembling at the heart of the night, a twitching of the webby flesh of the
earth.
And out of the bowels of the street one beastly, ungovernable cry.

Came and I recognized it: the end of the world.
And waited for the lightless plunge, the fury splitting the rock.
And waited: a kissing of leaves: a whisper of man-killing ancestral night --
Then: a tinkle of music, laughter from the next block.

Yet waited still: for the awful traditional fire,
Hearing mute thunder, the long collapse of sky.
It falls forever. But no one noticed. The end of the world provoked
Out of the dark a single and melancholy sigh

From my neighbor who sat on his porch drinking beer in the dark.
No: I was not God's prophet. Armageddon was never
And always: this night in a poor street where a careless irreverent laughter
Postpones the end of the world: in which we live forever.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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