(I dedicate this poem to my beloved Aunt, who finds my content depressing, its a little poem about the black death that wiped out half of Europe in the 12th century)

the feral wind
blows unjust and blind
through every fetid alley
hearth and manor
the toys of faith
are burned away
and swallowed
in wide graves made three days late
by men now dead
if two men are in the field
then two are taken
children ripe for sacrifice
die just as well
ragdolls in the gutter
maidens cast off virtue
hollow and white
the bells clang in mockery
to the dirge
of midnight’s holy coughs
we all fall down
ashen faces
twisted
paled in the knowing
that life is no promise
but a flame before
a tempest
and that God
is insatiable
with murder