Old scratch walks up and down in this world.
Not some misunderstood romantic tragic figure,
but the father of lies.

Old scratch stands behind the curtain
and raids the caravans loaded down with good intentions
He is the wicked warlord in the horn of Africa.

He is the self serving dictator with ridiculous hair
murdering his family in paranoid fits
while his people eat bark in hungry desperation.

He is dengue ebola, ecoli, the plague..
He is rage and landmines in the soccer fields
He is dysentery and influenza and krokodil.

Old scratch walks to in fro in this land
with infectious breath and violent laughter
He is the womb of grief and lost hope.

twenty thousand crying skeletons
with bloated bellies blinded by thirsty flies
each and every day old scratch ushers them
to the only relief they will ever find.
while another twenty thousand wait in line.

We give it a face, a voice, and a name.
I'm so glad we have old scratch to blame,
otherwise whose fault would all this madness be?