On a precarious planet:
The age of demise
Plastic geology
Poisoned skies
Air full of ruins
Satellites and drones
Reefs of rusted cars
Buildings stripped to bones
Thousand-foot high mountainscapes
Rebar, bricks and garbage
Open sewers, solid waste
Fumes and scalding liquid
Bloody woman in the road
Catatonic, naked
Eyes peer out from crack in walls
Hers completely vacant
Homeless children chase a rat
Strike it with a metal scrap
Hunting grub in the slums
Hair between their teeth and gums
Scavengers caked crust
Tarred in scum, scabs and rust
Broken trees upside down
Caved in skull
Muddy crown
Eye holes, teeth
Mouths - no ips
Stringy hair dangling
Ground disgorges stinking heat
Human shit in the street
Cracked dead bridge
Splayed apart
On a bed of weeds
Wretched denizens
Shelter from UV
One dies slowly
Groans like a beast enraged
An overdose or some disease in the penultimate stage
Screams to deform to gurgles
Someone slips in a knife
Ransack his hovel
They teem with microbial life
Desperate for water
He spasms and torques
Modern connoisseurs of rot
Descend upon the corpse
Thousands more
Millions of them
Singed and scorched
Parched and broken
Fires rise
All are victims
Dog eat dog
Apocalyptic