In the grey new world,
The morning arrives without colour,
The sky no longer burns with sunrise,
It simply becomes less dark.
A pale sheet of grey hangs across the earth,
Dull, heavy and endless,
As if the skies themselves have forgotten,
How to breathe.
Light remains without warmth,
With little promise or hope,
Only the quiet glow of a world,
That has forgotten what life once felt like.
Empty cities stand like fossils in the dirt,
Concrete towers leaning against the wind,
Their broken windows staring out into the haze,
Like hollow eyes.
The voices of thousands were once here,
Their laughter echoed between buildings,
The sound of vehicle engines on the streets,
Their busy footsteps and distant music.
Now the wind drifts through the silent streets,
Through rusted building frames and shattered glass,
Dust now drifts down the avenues,
Like a lost wandering ghost.
The rivers move slower now,
Polluted dark water running,
Beneath bridges that lead nowhere,
Filling waterways with hidden poisons.
Even the oceans have grown quiet,
Their restless tides seem slowed,
Beneath a sky that never changes,
With a fog that never seems to lift.
Land, sea, and sky blend together,
Into a single endless milky hue,
Like an unfinished painting washed in ash,
This is the world that remains.
Not destroyed by fire,
Or shattered by cosmic forces,
But quietly emptied of humanity,
Until the machine had drunk its fill.
The leaving happened slowly,
Almost gently,
As though humanity had been called away,
By something distant and irresistible.
One by one the lights went out,
One by one homes were emptied,
And while they were being looted of life,
The world kept turning.
In the grey silence, shapes still move,
Just at the edge of sight,
And the wind carries gentle sounds,
That might once have been mighty voices.
The new sounds feels fragile,
Learning to speak again through the ruins,
The lost and scattered have rejoined,
Survivors dusting off the ashes of yesterday,
Any machines left behind after mother’s work,
Lay rusting, rotting, beneath the earth,
Some still hum patiently for their master,
Hoping it will someday return.
And yet the planet endures,
Nature is forging a new path,
Grass now grows through the asphalt,
Like tiny hands reaching for the grey sun.
Moss spreads like a lush emerald blanket,
Covering the faces of forgotten statues,
The rain that falls on empty overgrown fields,
Washes dust from the bones of empty cities.
Time no longer rushes here,
It stretches wide and patient,
As though the planet is finally exhaling,
After holding her breath for so very long.
In the grey new world, the earth is not dead,
She is waiting, watching with empty skies,
Listening with silent oceans, remembering,
Those who once filled her with colour.
Dan Verkys 