My friend is gone but she’s still here, 

An eminence grise in a forgotten land. 

It is truly terrible to confront the past 

Without access to the present, 

The gift of knowing the time of day 

Or the answer to the riddle of the Sphynx… 

Iron wheels slip on well-worn tracks,

Pitted rims grind the gradient but there’s no turning back.

The brow of the hill recedes as it always does,

A mirage in a desert the size of China where the sands sting,

But don’t despair for today the passengers on their way to hell sing;

Sing of a future less infernal than the recent past

Bereaved of the first born and of the last,

And the cornet and the trumpet blast in tune

As the shell laden train hauls us all to our doom.

There may though just be time for one last dance

Or at least, God willing, a cheerful game of chance.