"Dead land merchant" (a semi-epic poem?)

[shadowknows69]

Across miles of the dead lands I roam
Astride my steed of steel and chrome.

I seek out the settlements the survivors have made.
I bring with me knowledge and items to trade.

Old now my soul and my body a shell
Useless to all save that which I sell

Information my barter if I’m lacking in goods
Tales of the outside, and I tell all I should.

I know the roads that are safe and those still in peril
Where the air is still clean and waters still sterile.

Not just current events, I try to bring more
Histories and tales of how the world was before.

Retelling what brought us to the place we now find.
I dream of the day it all leaves my mind

How humanity sowed its own seeds
Of its own destruction, placing its greed over its needs

30 years ago when I was a younger and stronger man
When the Hell began. When they bombed Iran

All the horsemen of prophecy were let loose on that day
War, Famine, Pestilence and Death. Devil come to collect his pay.

The government zealots told us all not to fret
Despite some setbacks we’d win the day yet.

The army of “Jesus” it seemed
Wasn’t doing as well as the Good Book had deemed.

Apparently the Generals of “God” didn’t have a clue.
What a billion pissed off Muslims could potentially do.

Chaos and death reigned, for a decade, the oil barely ran.
And a radioactive hole where once sat Tehran.

The Rubicon crossed the world joined the fray
World War Three they called it and we do to this day.

But lost in time it is as the many wars before.
Only the few left of my age remember anything more.

What’s left of us now history will ignore.

For what future can come?
Man’s time soon is done.

No lessons learned, barbaric as ever, as our cities and country burned.
Crops barely grow now. Animals are scarce and we don’t dare eat our herds.

We go through the motions.
Trying to rebuild on dead lands, souls devoid of emotion.

Watching friend and lover slowly or quickly die.
By brutal violence or cancers. Time after time. No tears left to cry.

Killing each other for food, land and gas.
Even in the end, nothing changes at last.

I ride through the dead lands. Merchant and prophet of things past.
Hear my stories at your peril. The truth will cut you like glass.

I know the history of our doom, offering no light in the gloom.
Just a dead land merchant, selling the story of our ruin.