A brotherly jaunt through sinister mirth

behold the brothers Death:

 

gowned and guided, an ill century

the fourteenth, an alliance of crop, of plague

in ground-down death of torrential pains

in sores and blood under the rains

that drowned the land, starved the bellies

there echoed howls of ill exclaim

a wanting of a light to shine

is where the brothers thought that they

worked well together, effectively

 

one would scoop from ruined crop

one from sickness, war, attack

the beak, a sign, of the plague mask

in shacks, where hags mopped weeping rot

crosses on doors, on floors of straw

with nothing in the cooking pot

the brothers danced and sang their wealth

of many clientele they sought

 

and on they went, and on they struck

perfecting songs on appetites

of pestilence and of disease

hand in hand like trees whose leaves

do smother, smite, in murderous breeze

the brothers, down the ages tease

and beckon, wreaking havoc on,

like rolling waves of seas on high

always taunting their sister - life