Apocalypse, now

You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times.
For people will love only themselves and their money.
They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful.
—2 TIMOTHY 3:1–5

The end times are upon us!
Everyone knows, but
stores the secret, too;
taboo.

Plagues rage around us:
locusts, mice, mites;
scourges of flood,
famine, fire, sword.

Brother fights brother;
Father Time dies;
sister
raped with Mother.

In Sudan,
eighteen million uncertain of
the next meal—¹
next breath.

As a new, secular morality
emerges—glacier-like—
and while waiting
for Maitreya,²

I anoint myself with finest
oils and spices: neem, tea tree, clove;
turmeric, cayenne, aloe;
Europa green clay.

A portable infestation—
walking colony
and
moveable feast.

My personal plague,
the scabies tribe
burrowing, breeding;
bloody the beading.

A book louse, I
would rather die
scratching, sneezing, dusted
than burn a single tome. But

ask me in a week
at three or four a.m.,
skin crawling,
day far from dawning. Is this
how Alexandria³ went?

Main image is from Pexels Free Photos.

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1. Sudan has a population of forty million, of which half (at the time of writing, in 2024) living with food insecurity (way worse now thanks to Mr T…please consider donating); the civil war began in 2023. ↩︎
2. In Buddhist texts, Maitreya is the future (next) buddha, to follow after all traces of the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (the historical Buddha, who became enlightened under a bodhi tree) have disappeared and a secular morality emerges. ↩︎
3. This is a reference to the ancient library of Alexandria, Egypt, sacked and burned at various times throughout history. ↩︎