the internet keeps warning us
but common sense demands
we remain skeptical – and yet . . .
strange to think, in light of current events –
Russians in Ukraine, Zion in Gaza,
the rest of the world posturing in protest . . .
somehow the world gone
berserk . . . war any moment, even
here, might break out. perhaps little
tremors, perhaps in full tribal violence

the rusted gun above our 65-inch plasma
where once may have stood a mantle of one sort
or another – and in the custodial closet,
with the brooms, mops, and vacuum cleaners,
beside the shorted Shark and dormant Hoover,
our ammunition gathers dust, cobwebbed,
nine-mill, .357, 12-guage, and .45 acp alike
(mama disallowed the .223 Assault Weapons)

So. with which weapon defend
against that Pale Horse and its iterant
angel? time ticks down: the world ends
passed on, soiled, to the next generation,
and what prophesies of the end of days will
bequeath them our mushroom-cloud dreams?

dmpitchford   12/31/23  123123