Death took a holiday, observing:
If they’re all standing outside,
Does that mean the building’s empty?

He wore sandalwood to ferry the dead
Chiron prismatic, refracted with dread,
He still walked with the elderly,
The ill, and the ill-timed,
But turned a blind eye to the howling,
The hot streets that would rise
A gaping mouth, devouring.

Death took a holiday
Guns would not fire
And hands could not,
With short and mildly-painful spasms,
Close around throats
And bombs would malfunction a chemical sigh
And bats just could not meet skulls
Nor would teeth shatter on sidewalks

Death took a holiday
And people rose up from their knees
To look into the eyes of the murderers
They had not become
To see what they had not done
Left with the silence of violence.