hale steam engine 
shuddering bowels of parts passed
melton jambs of an engine 
vaguely in the shape 
of what was once the idea in the head of 
a mere man. 
a meagre man. 
a meek man, 
squandering his inherited earth.

slewn of all charred flesh
the tracks build on, and on. 
and you can see doom coming 
from miles around;
what a spectacle -- 
what an awe

truly, we are the coals 
of our own undoing 

a steam engine sloughing its way through 10 thousand corpses
a shuddering machine constantly breaking and replacing its own parts, laying its own track, with hollow, unblinking, amber yellow headlights -- a steel fascade stained with the sins of man
tracking its way in a perfect latitudinal line across the continent. When it reaches the ocean, it picks itself up, turns 90 degrees, moves to the next minute line, and heads back

there are thousands of lines of track lain this way in a perfect grid
and thousands of engines
and almost no humans left
entire mountains brought down into rubble
the machines, only slower
but never fully stopped