For day 16 of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, a poem inspired by all three images that you can see here, and read all the submissions, of course.

Oz

Look on my works
only their images
kept for posterity

ye Mighty
have set the world alight
built heaps of sand

and despair
yet the despair is yours
there is none here amid the ruins

nor buried forgotten deep

for hope rises from the flames
and a desert of sand
will fill your mouths.