Death

Death does not only take away:

it puts something far worse in place.

It gives wise men doubt, superstition;

in place of knowledge it puts supposition

and wishful thinking;

it taketh away eyes and hands,

rendering the sober insensible.

Fear slinks in on its stomach 

to bite at the heels of those etched in concrete,

it freezes those whose thoughts were fluid:

it turneth the mind against itself.

Death puts a sword in one's hand -

a sword which it commands we shall turn inward.

And in the illusion of life and spirit,

it inflicts its ultimate punishment.

The ultimate joke -

but no hands are there to clap,

and no mouths are there to laugh,

and no tongues are there to declaim,

and no crying echoes through the great

halls of humanity.

There is no compassion there,

each tongue twisted in the lie of death.