At evening, through the city’s ashen breath,
A labourer came seeking only bread;
No dream of gold, no splendid wreath of death—
A crust, some beans, a place to lay his head.

But shutters sealed the baker’s narrow shrine,
And hunger wandered naked through the square;
Above, behind the curtains, men drank wine
And laughed at those who cursed the empty air.

O Hunger! black evangelist of flesh,
You preach where sermons fail and laws decay;
You strip the soul of every civil mesh
And teach the trembling hand another way.

The loaves that yesterday were poor men’s food
Now gleamed like jewels beneath a merchant’s eye;
A little flour became a treasure, blood
The final coin with which the starved might buy.

One day: the streets were filled with hollow cries.
Two days: the windows answered them with scorn.
The rich looked down with laughter in their eyes,
While in the gutters rage and want were born.

A week—and silence clothed the avenue.
No bread remained, no masters, and no men.
The masks of reason split; the bodies knew
The ancient law that wakes beneath the pen.

For civilisation is a fragile feast,
A table laid while every stomach’s fed;
Remove the bread—and underneath the priest,
The clerk, the lord, there waits the famished beast.

And when at last the gilded windows break,
No anthem rises, no just heavens descend—
Only the blood that starving creatures make
When hunger teaches mercy how to end.