“The Harbinger’s Acme”

by

One day fraught with corpses taught

Death’s right hand, his paramour, what

Waylays the program to slay and trot

Amongst piles stacked high of to-be rot.

 

The left hand gripped a stone refined

To whet the blade what doth consign

A soul to Sheol, to herds bovine,

Marching all with palms supine  

 

Death stopped, then, when a weak child bore

To caliginous fate a rusted sword

He’d sequestered in case of a force untoward

And the harbinger broke an oath long-since sworn

 

This heinous onus was beyond the pale, 

So Death then took up a holy nail

And forced the stake through his own chainmail

And, with a shrill cry, bereaved his tale