Sitting atop your high horses
looking down upon your brother
sword held high in the sunlight
with triumphant laughter in your mind

You failed to sense my arrival
as it crept unnoticed into your lungs
Had you paused for a single breath
you might have heard the echo—
my footsteps, close behind,
matching your swift stride

On vast ships of human greed
you sailed across the open sea
I held your failing bodies close
while you, drenched in blood
took a thousand lives
I watched you, blinded by lust
counting your long-awaited power
through the growing piles of bodies
your heavy swords left along the path

Let the blood flow to every corner
into the heart of every village
The rats are taking over the cities;
like quiet waves of deep decay
they eclipse your fragile, beautiful world

Throughout the changing ages
I have hidden myself well
I have visited you in many guises
walking among so many others throughout time

Allow me to introduce myself:
I am Yersinia Pestis
Yes, my friend, take my hand
Men and mice, mice and rats,rats and men
—is it so hard to see
that to me, your fate is entirely the same?

Cough up your dark blood
as your mortal flesh gives up
abandoned and desperate for help
Mother, father, sister, brother
—abandoning one another
to the swift course of decay

I made a binding promise
to pervert your minds and thoughts
turning brother against brother
worse than ever witnessed before
Desperate cries and terrible accusations

flatten your constructed world
to one and only one level
all weeping under the same sky

To me, you are all the same:
poor, rich, beautiful, ugly,young, old,
good, or evil,witch, priest, Christ, Antichrist
Cities are dancing blindly
to the low sound of my voice

Racial and religious wars ignite
started solely by the power of my breath
The witches’ flesh is burning
falsely accused of my silent deeds
—some hanged, some buried alive
Yes, bring them all to me

I knock on the iron gates of hell
followed closely by your blood kin
brothers standing hand in hand
bound by an eternal fear

For I am the law when I arrive
I have been called hell on earth
but when I step away from my throne
you manage to keep hell alive
—entirely on your own

Rattus rattus, my quiet tool
fleas, my constant companions
I am Yersinia Pestis
I hear you clearly
once more desperately
shouting out my name