“This is the way the world ends…” - A Four Part Exercise

1.Poem.

      “This is the way the world ends…” (The Hollow Men – TS Eliot)

How will it all end? We don’t know…or do we? We have records of how they say it will end, like the Book of Revelation. Many have speculated – ‘not with a bang but a whimper’, ‘some say the world will end in fire/some say in ice/from what I’ve tasted of desire/I hold with those who favour fire’. Will it be a destruction of our own making, or something entirely out of our hands? Are we, as a race, marching inexorably towards certain destruction – completely unaware of out impending doom? Is our world already ending, or has it just begun? So many questions…so few answers. I guess we’ll never know until we’re dead.

2.Dream.

Dreams, dreams…where to start? The dream I’ve had which has haunted me most was one I had when I was very young. My parents had split up and were going to divorce…but now I think I know what this dream means.

There was a painting, which came to life and made people disappear. It got my dad.
The house was burning; my mother, my sisters and I were forced to run away into the forest which suddenly surrounded us. A crowd of cats were with us, showing the way.

That was a dream which, looking back, showed how I felt my world was falling apart. My father was gone and I no longer had a home. That’s a dream that has stayed with me all my life, and probably always will.

3.Conflict

Not so much a conflict, but right now I feel a lot of my friends are sort of leaving me. Well, that’s extreme – not leaving me, but moving away from me. I’m stuck and they’re moving away and I’m feeling pretty down. Why? That’s a question I keep asking – is it me? is it them? just…why?

3.Conclusion

Title: (this is how)

This is how a life breaks apart
This is how a world falls down
This is how the ending starts
(this is how)
(we die)

Breaking, splintering, shattering now
Falling, crashing, tumbling now
Ending, finishing, dying now
(this is how)
(we die)

Fire?
Yes, that is one of the ways,
For this world to end.
Passion’s bright and searing flame
Will this being rend.

Ice?
Yes, that is another way,
For this world to end.
Detachments brittle, uncaring cold
We to hell descend

(this is how)
(we die)

A child’s life torn asunder
By events she cannot comprehend
A scar hid deep ’neath smiling face
It will be her end

(this is how)
(we die)

With each dying soul the world
Does itself part die
So as we end, so doth the world
Partially die

This is how the world ends
(this is how)
(we die)

Mayhap in fire or in ice
Both these means suffice
Whimpering with a bang too
Either way will do

Each life wasted
Each soul dead
Each spirit crushed
Each joy fled

We are the world
And with our deaths it ends.

(this is how)
(we die)