"wouldn’t cross the road to piss on you if you were on fire"

 "wouldn’t cross the road to piss on you if you were on fire" 

the history books

listing the steps towards wars and beyond

yesterday  today

they are listing the stations

on the road to armageddon 

not the explosive sort

or an ending that will be read in books

but the end of history itself 

the end of the world

no one will read that history 

but all are reading the signs

all along the road designed

by everyone’s mitre  

the steps

into the catacombs 

the handrail 

into the crematoria

the pestilence 

the signs and omens

just folk lore

yet behold they come to pass

this was the naffness

that was so easily dismissed 

time and again such valid refusals

have been the lodestone of longevity

now no longer than my finger

that though the peephole 

is seen to curl and beckon

in the crematorium of the ‘well i’ll be damned’

and damn me

you still refuse to believe

that you are on fire

i recall the epithet

"wouldn’t cross the road to piss on you if you were on fire"

all gone up in steam