The attire of ideals ill-fit
in times of turmoil, times of want,
when hunger loosens a belt till it
slips to the ground, and we are gaunt,
nought but haggard skin, brittle bones,
starved from famines unbeholden
to kings sitting on their grand thrones
or prayer books long grown olden.
No, we waste thinner and clothing
slips off—robes, uniforms, and suits,
each badge, medal, and just-so thing
once honored by waxed marching boots
to give the semblance of order,
of hierarchy, place, power,
enforcing each make-believe border
between so-and-so in his tower.
The cufflinks slip off the narrowed wrist
like overlarge shackles from a beast
and the noblest scion cannot resist
the promise of the scantiest feast.
He springs, shedding old pretenses
like a Winter pelt cumbering
his hunt in Summer, his senses
overwhelmed after slumbering.
Even ladies doff their dresses,
their waists too small for bodices
as they prowl, twigs in their tresses,
wild-eyed like pagan goddesses,
seeking the next morsel to eat
to sate the pit between their ribs,
etiquette lost, thinking of meat
rather than wedding rings and cribs.
And children—children become ghouls
perching over impromptu graves,
soiled, feral, clutching bloody tools
while sheltering in charnel caves
to lick at cleaved skulls long bereft
of sustenance, the gray matter
drained, sucked to dry dust, nothing left,
though the children grow no fatter.
And so the ideals are piled high
like clothing for the End-Times pyre,
burning, smoke blackening the sky
as the starved and the cold aspire
to make a feast of their brethren—
naked, emaciated, stripped
by the hunger pangs and the ken
bestowed by the maw of the crypt.