SURVIVORS
From Big Ben to the Eiffel Tower
Doomsday warnings wail hour after hour:
Imminent collapse of the human race!
And in a flash the world is laid to waste.
A shocked raggedy-doll stumbles and staggers
Along aimless paths seeking survivors,
While calling out plaintive piteous pleas
Of, “Can anyone help me please!”
The path leads Raggedy-doll to another:
A sensitive Poet and Philosopher
Waving absurdity laid bare and unfurled
Of a once cheap honky-tonk of a world.
Here comes a beetle-browed financier,
Well – just a mere assistant cashier
Counting out a life paid in denial and delusion;
Here he enters in wide-eyed confusion.
Supporting him is the Black Samaritan
Strong of shoulder, pride and passion,
Who once dreamt of being something
more,
Only to end up minding a door.
“I am one who was once blind but can now see;
Who once had settled for a piece of security
In a city where I had never seen the lights,
Nor till now what is important in life.”
The four soon become five
When they save one just barely alive,
Through iron willed-soul so black and depraved
And from whom they will have to be saved.
Beetle-brow cashier now on vacation
Has arrived at his final destination
Which he has yearned for in his dreams
For a whole life-time to him it seems.
“I often dreamt of going on vacation,
But my work was my life’s obligation.
And so I sat behind self-made prison bars
Dreaming of sleeping under the stars!”
The need is felt to stay alive
As once again four become five
When Raggedy-doll gives birth to future hope
Without which our survivors would not cope.
Iron-will’s hope hides in a fascist fantasy
That seeks salvation through supremacy
By force of power, violence and destruction:
And all that sow the seeds of annihilation.
“I climbed Mt. Everest. I alone. Always alone.
And there I’ll sit atop the mountain on my throne
Invincible and possessed of a special immunity
With a plundered world spread out below me!”
Clinging to his tattered rags of self-delusion,
Iron-will’s life force leaks away with the radiation
Of an inner poison of violence and domination,
That once robbed a new world of a wise Samaritan.
What of the Poet, Raggedy-doll and Future Hope?
Will they leave behind the Past’s mistakes as they grope
Their way to a new Eden that heals and mends;
Where people work together, live together, like friends?
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Thanks for reading my little poem inspired by and based on the science fiction film,
©Chris Christopoulos 2017
