End Days

[vagantes]

The church stands high above the cold North Sea,
Gravestones huddle round it like lost children;
Its broken spire leans forward into the Western sky
Looking out toward the dazzled drizzle
Of a dying dwindling day.
And a bare-armed woman stands forlorn,
Frozen into stillness, on the shore waiting
For the boats to come sailing home from war.
Rankness of lost hope sours the mouth
As we wait for the end of days to come
Bringing weakness, sickness and slow death.
Perhaps, an angel with a flushed and angry face
Will lean down out of the broken clouds
To draw me out of my last and final sleep.