In the days of the old kingdoms
along the Nile, the custom
was when a king or queen died,
he or she would not depart lonely,
Servants, bodyguards, relatives, eunuchs,
even whole harems were buried
in the soft sands along to serve the big
cheese Pharaohs in mausoleums
or have them sail along in boats to catch
the flow of the underworld,
so it seems little has changed in 2015
in some crazed minds, grasping loaded guns
bought at corner pawns, blasting bullets at nightclubs,
concerts, classrooms, airports killing at pointed random,
refusing to go to the afterlife alone, demanding
the old power of kings and queens--nay,
in their final earth-strewn moments, they want
the power of vengeful gods to destroy,
for a mass killer demands that his might
makes the last rite, and those accidental
souls crossing his random path accompany
him along his river of transience, where
the flowing blood will be surely mixed, until
lying and dying from a policeman's bullet,
he prays to his alienated self, begging
for a quiet voyage to a peaceful planet,
where no demons with firearms roam.