Age of Famine

There is no place in the upper kingdom
not blighted with plague and famine
The bones of corpses stripped of flesh litter our towns
The desert reclaims the land
Corrupt winds of pestilence and contagion
Sicken the air with piteous lamentations of despair

No living creature great or small is safe from the starving and the desperate

Decades of drought
Seven years without rain or annual flood
The black earth is in ruins, cursing the unfed masses
Reserves of grain exhausted
Cities choked with sand
Roving hordes of the starving and emaciated
Scour the streets for what scraps they can scavenge

Even insects and vermin fear to tread our cities
Starving humans migrate like swarms of locusts
Eating carrion corpses dogs, human excrement, animal dung

The poor are forced to commit unheard of atrocities
Noble women beg to become slaves and whores
Children are dashed against walls
Infants are roasted on high ground

Those entombed are unearthed
Violating the royal dead
What the pyramid concealed is defiled
Lawlessness unchecked, chaos unopposed
The land is deprived of kingship

No refuge for the old the young
The weak the malnourished
The diseased sick who are left along to die
As the just and unjust alike descend into wickedness
And ravenously turn on each other
The age of famine is upon us