Armageddon

I sat at a red light,
gazed across neighborhoods
dotted with churches.
Crusaders for Jesus
spat venom at
Islamic fanatics on the radio,
threatened retaliation
for bombings
half a world away,
where three hundred
people lay in pieces.

A sober voice interrupted,
silenced the debate,
to report a blast
in the nation's capital.
Hundreds dead.
Thousands wounded.
National Cathedral,
pews packed,
blown to shrapnel
during a funeral.

Sirens wailed across
a city shocked awake. 
The light turned green,
but no one moved.
The ground shook,
summoned us from our cars.
From concrete 
overpass swaying,
we watched churches 
vanish into roaring,
black clouds.

Blood stained glass shattered,
bells jangled, 
as steeples, bound for
Middle East targets,
ascended on plumes
of yellow fire.
Thundering stone missiles, 
gothic, baroque, modern,
pierced the clouds.
God's launch pads
smoldered, burned.
No church stood intact.

Under cover of war with Islam,
smaller spires took flight,
pounded local churches
long begrudged.
People scrambled
for cover to emergency
broadcast warnings
of Muslim minarets descending.  

Then, more news,
of the "big birds,"
mighty cathedral steeples
of Notre Dame, Cologne,
Ulm, Canterbury,
on course for Mecca.
Scarcely a steeple
had crossed Ireland's shores,
where Catholics and
Protestants had launched
upon each other --
mutual assured destruction.
Further reports,
of Hindu sneak attacks
on mosques in India,
of gigantic mushrooms 
sprouting in Israel,
Iraq, China...

I turn now to a 
touch on my shoulder.
An old woman weeping, 
balanced upon her cane,
offers me a silver flask.
I tip it back,
feel whiskey burn my throat.
The sky strobes
from blue to dazzling white.

Scott Speck
1998