Apocalypse, No

When the end of the world finally came
No one would believe it was here
Despite the onslaught of status changes and
Selfies with backgrounds full of raining fish,
Ravenous locusts, the poisonous Wormwood.
Social media platforms groaned under the strain
Safety teams issued millions of warnings.
“Missing Context!” “Extremist Content!”
The weight of the throttles shattered their hands.
Blue-check profiles scattered and screamed
Ratioed into an unforgiving abyss
Immolated by their own hot takes
Fill-ins handled their shows that day.

Meanwhile, in Lexington and Lafayette,
San Diego and Sioux Falls, life did not end.
Detroit and Dallas, Tucson and Tazewell
Continued. The world spun, heedless
Of the apocalypse that raged beyond
The thin border of glass and passcode.
No one saw locusts or streams of blood.
No one stepped lightly around drifts of cod.
And certainly no one, anywhere, at all
Missed the television talking heads
Who took a few days off “for their health”.

Sometimes, I think, it’s good for a writer to show everyone else how they see the world in a way that doesn’t leave everyone running around like all the hounds of hell were on their trail.

(Photo Credit: Selection from The Last Judgment by Hieronymous Bosch via Wikimedia Commons)