THE FIVE HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Of the Horsemen of Apocalypse
We speak in hush-ed tone
For were they go they leave a trial of
Sadness grief and bones

But are they such a dreadful lot
As bad as what is said
Have we ever really stopped to think
we could have somehow been mis-led

For a start they all like horses
So they can’t be all that bad
Who knows the guilt they live with
Or the childhoods they each had

Ok lets take death for starters
Did you know his first name’s Jim
And his horses name is Constance
So perhaps he’s not that grim.

Ron Pestilence has haemorrhoids
So it goes against the grain
The hours he spends on horseback
Well he’s a martyr to the pain

Now War who’s name is Sandy
Is really sensitive and meek
In fact he can’t stand violence
So his outlooks really bleak

Gerald Famine has a lonely life
Except his colleagues three
He’s none who want to love him
How desolate can you be?

whilst collectively they’re menacing
alone they’re rather sad
sort of ‘tragedies on horseback’
and pathetic more than bad



THE FIFTH HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Along the dark and Windswept road
The dreaded Horsemen swept
The traditional four were
hopping Mad!
Their new colleague had overslept.

But they could really say a thing
Though they didn’t need a fifth


This horesman's name was Derek
newly promoted
from accounts,
to train for Armageddon
and sort their expenses out.

Death he frets in silence
Famine's gives a worried sigh
Plague and Pestilence
both did quake
When Derek
the Bureaucrat rode by.

The Horsemen ride as alway
all four in line abreast
and Derek rides
behind them all
costing out their quests

All may flee before them
this apocolyptic
deadly host
but the horseman of
Bureaucracy
Is surely FEARED the most.

Bill Mitton

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-fifths/