---

A small spark,

A whimper in the wasted fields;

A flicker from the rising flames of the sun’s

Blistering gaze

Ignites the hollows in the towers

As queens and princes atop their monoliths,

Reflected eternally in their mirrors,

Cower beneath its rays,

Soon to drown in the inferno.

What need had they of other worlds?

They look out

To the turrets of the others,

And their eyes meet

But they have forgotten how to speak

Without their messenger

Revolving

Around the shallow towers.

They burn together in the basin of the valley.

True forms lay bare

In the ashes of the holocaust:

Their ruins only a corner

Of this vast deadened landscape;

A hollow wasteland in death

As it was in life,

Orbiting the sun.