And money, that most pure imagination...
                                           —Don Juan, Canto XII, 2, 7

I

We need a hero. The time is out of joint,
  has burnt its fragile socket, while for the Mayans,
who read their dazzling mountain stars like newsprint,
  transcribing mankind's pre-allotted lifespan—
by 2012, there's simply no more of it.
  God's eighteenth-century clock has winded down.
We're at the end, or so the websites warn us,
of everything we know and value precious.

I'm usually unconvinced, convinced instead
  that end-of-history talk is soon demolished
by history's own refusal to be led
   into some silent terminus. Things may not flourish:
we may be colder, hungrier, more upset
  by the growing list of what's been taken from us.
...