At the end of the day

Blood pours down the window as the thunder rages.
This moment is the culmination of the ages.
Monsters wheel and scream unheard, the air is full of flame.
Babies squirm, hearing the call, remembering the grave.

You and I spent the afternoon walking hand in hand,
The air was cool and bright as our feet slipped through the sand.
Now the ground erupts beneath us and we plummet into darkness as we rise -
The past and future whirling past each other, the colors draining from our eyes.

I have cowered by the chimney, seeing the blood beneath my skin.
But the lovely false promises of music and love redeem our sin.

***

I don't think the above is any good. "This moment is the culmination of the ages" -- ugh! The whole thing sounds to me like a parody of a pretentious high school student after dropping acid for the first time. The lines are flaccid, the wording blurry.

But this was the best I could do to express this particular sentiment.. what can I say?

The title is deliberately deceptive, as are some of the lines. My sense is that it would be easy to read this as a description of Armageddon, of the rapture, and I am using that to make a point. I believe this is the way the world is all the time, and that this is in fact the meaning of most apocalyptic writing -- a mystical perception rather than a literal prediction.

The distinct characteristic of existence is that all moments are equally real and equally "present"; they can never lose their reality. Our choices are permanent. Our parents had real childhoods. The ancients walk among us. The floating of a strange flower petal a trillion years from now on a faraway world is as real as this table here. But at the same time, for us, there is only one "present": the unique moment of the here and now. We are capable of experiencing both of these aspects of existence.