(My Pamphletary Lent)
Israel Centeno

And they say—
because they always say,
mouths full of algorithms—
that the end is near.

They gather
under LED streetlights,
in damp doorways
like neon eyelids,
facing the unfading screens
of their phones.

They want to be witnesses
when the world
bursts
like a bubble
in the universe.

The heat rises,
the seas come undone,
the plague breathes out loud.

And no,
they haven’t recognized it.
They wait for the Second Coming
as if waiting
for the next notification.

I was hungry,
but you were on intermittent fasting.
I was a stranger,
but outside your delivery zone.
Sick,
but out of coverage.
Naked,
and you posted the photo.

Beloved,
you still don’t see it.

Out there,
modern catapults
tear open cities
like rotting oranges.
The bellows roar,
iron bites,
teeth grind.

The end,
wrapped in gasoline,
in phosphorus,
in radiation.

We,
Abaddon to ourselves,
wait for judgment
as if it were
a movie trailer.

And they say
the birds will fall silent,
the trees will forget how to dream.

And still we believe
the future will save us.

We’ve enslaved the Lord,
tagged Him with a barcode.
Hung
the millstone around our necks
as if it were
a sanctified NFT.

The little ones—
in Pakistan,
in China,
in the Congo,
in Somalia,
in Havana,
in Caracas,
in the jungles,
in the factories,
on the margins we erase
with a flick of the thumb.

Those who died in the assault,
those who die as hostages,
those who lie under the rubble in Gaza,
not understanding
why the sky falls on them
while war-makers
negotiate peace
over tombs still open.

Damn world.
Damn peace.
Tombs without headstones
with satellite connection.

And we,
in our designer living rooms,
choosing sides
like football teams,
racehorses,
seasonal gladiators.

Modern Caesars
tapping “like”
or swiping down.

We sweat
progressivism and fentanyl.
Alpha males
fluttering like butterflies
around whoever pees the most.

We swear allegiance
to idols,
taking God’s name in vain,
faces veiled in filters.

We are
lost.

And still we wait
for the end,
an apotheosis
with fireworks.

We turn our eyes
from the triptych.
Close our ears
to the baroque.

The waves of fire
have given us
front row seats
to watch
the Son of Man
come
on the clouds.

Clouds of smoke,
of gunpowder,
of gasoline,
of radiation.

And then,
my dear,
the curtain will fall.

And we will applaud.