For TikTok, Instagram and Not . . . Eternity

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

A buried sundial, buried in the ash

Of Pompeii’s death, saw time not marked by sun

For nearly two millennia.  As trash

In holocaust, beneath a blackness, ton

Of black and pyroclast, time ended where

That dial was trapped.  The moments, hours and days

Were sublimated far beyond the air

Of living even.  Naked bodies’ grays

Were hidden in the darkness worse than mine

When I will be cremated.  Moonlight failed

To reach them too.  Romance without a shrine

Was sacrificed, with heat and blitz, impaled.

  Now tourists walk about and see the dial

    And body shapes and take quick snaps mean while.

~ Phillip Whidden