AN EXCERPT FROM MY LATEST WORK TO BE PUBLISHED NEXT YEAR.It is dedicated to the memory of Emilie and all the lives lost at the dawn of 2026 in Crans Montana, Switzerland:
SPEAK, APOCALYPSE:
A LONG POEM FOR OUR TIME
Through the valley of tears, you shall wander
And stumble across the stones of deadly images—the rehearsed scripts of what happened, perhaps, maybe, surely
Imaginings deliver the cold truth of absence
And loss cannot be circumvented
It must be embraced, encountered again, and crossed into
VANISHING
Or possibly, erasure.
Speak, Apocalypse.
The air crisp and cool
After the steady
RAIN
Some mist comes off the water and gives the sea the allure of a haunted
SPACE.
Speak, Apocalypse.
Sun galore working over the gaps and concealments
What will the tribulations of the human will
Yield?
The fires of our anger and revolt
Stoked again by an array of lies
And justifications
Speak, Apocalypse
And reveal what WAS
AND IS
AND WILL BE.
Where body meets soul
Pebble meets stone
And celestial music
Mutes urban noise and cacophony
The imagination is sparked by the light brushing off the water far into the horizon.
Stories come, like fish in the net, bringing solace and wisdom.
Speak, Apocalypse.
MARIE LIENARD-YETERIAN