Far Out Is Doom: A Sacred Epic

By Simon Pole

Reaching higher than the Tower of Babel, shining brighter than the Golden Calf, such is the idol of the future man will raise to worship. A rocketship of immense size and power, the culmination of the best efforts earth has to offer. By compulsion or chicanery, all have been forced to build it. And all will be changed by the Apocalypse its fiery crash from orbit ushers in...

In the Wasteland, where ignorant armies continue to fight, a small community is spared, eking out a meagre existence amidst the peril and threat. Always on the edge of disaster, they persevere in hope, with skills honed in the old world. After all, had not terrifying angels, visiting out of the dust, promised all would soon change again in the blink of eye? But, the young cannot wait, and a daughter of the tribe takes matters into her own hands...

The journey of man is the journey of earth, for all was made for us, and for us to destroy. And it is not just some men, but all who must choose, what is to be their highest value, the Ultimate. Will it be the rocket, in orbit high above, or what all men can share in equally: the love which uplifts every hand, every heart, and every soul it touches. Man’s enemy might tempt us to lies and idols, but in the end we learn he who endures will be saved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Pole
• Release date: Sep 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005340377

Simon Pole

His mind corrupted by childhood exposure to horror movie matinees, but equally enthralled by the atmosphere of old churches, Simon Pole writes cosmic poetry from the location of Kingsville, Ontario. A graduate of Harvard University, Simon has continued his studies of what is hidden in the dark. Writing is also in his blood, being the great-great-grandson of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.

Book preview

Far Out is Doom

a verse novel

Simon Pole

www.simonpole.ca

Text copyright 2022 Simon Pole

All Rights Reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Simon Pole.

Cover Photo Original Public Domain

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

About the Author

Chapter 1

A strange snow it was, that ash, when it fell,

In swirls around the city, and the haze

Full of smoke too, which settled, undisturbed

By heat-seared wind, and stifled choking lungs.

Afar out, where the suburbs lay empty

There was red, a snaking glow that sputtered

And flared throughout the day, and burnt at night.

Was it a fire? Some insisted it was

In days when a mass still lived in these streets,

Their home, and scraps of news, what really was,

Did not come to us except by rumour;

And so, others made noise, this is the end,

The feet of the Apocalypse, and that,

The advance guard, is what burns,

And that burning the crushing pits of Hell,

Where all that lives is stripped and eaten up,

And left ash, the flake of matter once good,

And this, this dead refuse is what filtered

On us, and that we ate in our poor fare,

And breathed in our coughing breath, as we,

In the pall, continued to hope for help.

There is no help, the man said, in drear rags,

Pockmarked and bald, a skeleton almost,

And this, a ruin of girder and beam,

Open to the oppressive sky, was once

His pristine garage, clean as a kitchen,

With showroom cars that shone and ran purring,

But gaping wrecks now crowded the corners,

And other twisted metal lay rusting:

There was no pride or living, only life,

Which we still held, though some were loosing hold,

And grew to be like the drowner who swims,

But whose limbs grow to be too heavy with effort

Against the swell, and soundless slips beneath.

He was on his way, but said, putting coals

On a small cooking grill where some meat popped,

"I know, cars once got through, but late, nothing.

Don’t think I ramble, or sputter bitter—

I stayed though they counselled evacuate,

Someone had to fix what still chugged, those days,

But now all gears fail, and what turned at dawn

By night is still, when lay we to wake not

On our gross beds, and we eat this false meat."

His name was Rib, and then another came,

Stealing in through the miasma of grime

That like a curtain hung clouding the door,

To meet us at the coals, and he produced

From underneath his sheath of rags, a pack,

And this, sewn up in some krinkled plastic

He waved, madly wild-eyed, but yet withdrew

And huddled again when we queried it.

Was it food? And he laughed and spat with gall.

No it’s not food, he said, "it’s something else.

Is that all you devour? Like some thin dogs,

If there are still dogs that slink uneaten

In the streets—no it’s something for the soul,

If you still have one inside your worn shells."

And he mused silent before untying

His bundle with mute rev’rence, displaying

In the palm of his scarred hand a flower

That was bright yet, and not to ash succumbed,

A gray shape that kept its formal contours,

But brittle, its life like ours leeched away.

We gasped and drew back, such colour shocked us,

We who had in a palette of drabness

Existed, for what, five or six years now?

But that had been the count, years of collapse.

Rib and some others who huddled with us,

To me looked out of hoods and muffled hats:

All wrecks of humanity, just like me,

Who shook at a flower, that it might die.

I, who by virtue of obscure knowledge,

Weird enthusiasms pursued before,

Esoteric gleanings now commonplace,

Had become a prophet of sorts, a boss,

Or expert in the lay of our new world.

So I said, as judge, "It must be preserved,

At all costs, so we know not everywhere

Is like here, and still, beyond the borders,

Or inside, perhaps, seeds of hope renew."

But it died all the same, and it we mourned.

Chapter 2

One language once there was for all mankind,

Or so it is said, and perhaps, one day,

One language will again let us be one,

But without a turn of heart, would it work?

A savage heart, our selfishness writ large,

In disputing to outer acts drove us,

To vying, and taking of all for self,

And not just myself, the myself in each,

But the greater myself, which is all men,

Together, but with no thought but for him,

Which is the greater him, the idol man,

At least that is what I think, I the Judge.

I am a Judge, that is what they call me,

In our little village of squalid huts

Built within the bones of grander structures.

Indeed our Tower of Babel, so tall,

Has been thrown down, and the bricks fired in pride

In wrath melted, a wrath we called forth

As we climbed higher in the wrongest way.