Paul Brookes is running an ekphrastic challenge this month and I missed the start. It’s a jolt to realise that September is over and we really are into the autumn. The image below is one of today’s prompts.

I semplici

They had a hundred names for them,
the starving mass that crawled the famine fields
and burned the strongholds of the rich,
the sick and dying, the simple folk,
eaters of human flesh and heretics in thought.

The rich and fat in piety
harried their unarmed armies,
armed with blessings and righteousness
to stamp out the sin of envy,
the fury to survive.

Hanging from the spindle trees,
burning on stinking pyres, their howls of despair
rose in blood and smoke, to their God
they would have poor as themselves.