Conversations of the End

six. 

You spoke recklessly

Into the palm of your hand

Elbow resting on the table

While your foot tapped relentlessly on the floor

In violent discord

With the general consensus of the room

That the world would be here in 

Twenty-thirteen.

You liked it better to think

Of its doom

That the blaring sirens, bad coffee

And cigarette smoke

Will expire soon

That no one will follow you into the bleak 

Unknown

That no one will follow to fail to remember

Our names

That poetic comets and fistfuls of fire will

Rain 

Until you stand alone 

At the end of the finish line

Pale-eyed victor of the blackest game

You spoke inaudibly

And the talk turned to plans in an hour or two

To picking up smokes, and a bottle of 

Johnny Walker Blue, 

Or two

And you 

Abandoned your silent cause 

Your rebellion of opinion, and subsequent lack

Of applause

For the fate of the table in an hour

Or two

And you 

Smiled affably down the lens of a camera

Raised your voice to compete

In an old joke