santa monica pier in poetry

we stood out at the end of the world
we stood out at some other world’s beginning
we stood on the receding hairline
of the Western man and knew
that what there was not gray or gone
was still obviously thinning
no one else there noticed we were
at the edge of a war
everyone else riding rides or
playing in the sea
if the sound of ending did not grind
so loudly in my little head
I could have thought I was mistaken
that they were wrong and not me
but I saw the sun begin to set
history’s proven me out in the
interceding ragged years but
I saw the end of the world
in the afternoon on Santa Monica Pier