The Rip Post                                                                                              


Last Chance
Did I write a poem
Entitled "Last Dance"?
Or perchance it was
"Last Chance"?

"Will there be a tomorrow?"
As Wilbur asked Orville
In the wake of Kitty Hawk.

It goes to show them
What a moon can do

You dialed up a random
Address and proclaimed
Yourself ready for romance.
But the result was noir,
Lacking in cosmic brilliance.

The stars, the very galaxies,
The conflagrations of cosmic
Bodies known and unknown
Could wheel and turn,
And in a wink, a blink,
With scarcely a nod,
This human realm would
Cease to be,
Including thee and me.

The Big Bang would
Implode and converge
Without so much
a whimper, so don’t
wheedle, and don’t simper.

It’s an uncivil war,
We’ve seen it before,
But the resources run
Low and temperature’s
Rising, hallucinations
Fryin’ eggs on the sidewalk.

Satan and Maya are
Camped out in the side yard
Waiting for you to discard
Your faith in sweet reason,
Because, as for Dick C.,
It’s always hunting season
Agin those who cry treason.

Reach deep now, lad, into
Your dreams, reach past
The death merchant’s schemes.
The tide comes in and runs out
Again, the pendulum swings
Fro and to, so don’t be daunted
By dire scenarios, for we’ll yet
Be in Fennario, that old mule,
Hunter and me.
       ---Jack Oakes

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