Vengeance in the Devil’s Den

The moon, a severed eye of bone, watched the cabin where love was shown.
But shadows creep, and lead will fly, when crooked stars burn the sky.
The sheriff’s heart, a cold, black kiss, turned her sweet life to dark abyss.
Rope on her neck, taut and deep—a promise of a cold dark sleep

The sky was bruised with violet veins,
a gallows built of rotted pine.
The Sheriff held the heavy chains,
and crossed a dark, eternal line.

My darling stood in tattered lace,
the mud was thick around her feet.
He spat upon her angel face,
while his deputies laughed in the street.

The lever pulled, the floor gave way,
the snap echoed through the bone.
My world dissolved to ashen grey,
my heart became a serrated stone.

I lunged to catch her swaying form,
but shackles bit into my wrist.
I felt the coming of the storm,
And then the Sheriff’s heavy fist.

He broke my ribs against the wood,
he left my face within the dirt.
He left me where the gallows stood,
a broken pile of red and hurt.

The badge he wore, a silver lie,
reflected in her staring glass.
I watched my sun and summer die,
a pain that would not pass.

My heart had shattered, loud and fast,
then forged in hell to never tire.
Built of a hate meant long to last,
and tempered in a demon’s fire.

I fed the iron, clicked the gear,
an unnerving sound for remorseless men.
I whispered vengeance in their ear,
and walked into the devils' den.

A silent howl, a sudden freeze,
while blackbirds scattered from the gate.
A shadow moved among the trees,
a ghost that wouldn't leave to fate.

He found the first by livery wall,
a coward with a heavy hand.
He didn't let the bastard sprawl,
but buried him within the sand.

A heavy slug through deputy’s jaw,
sent teeth like hail into the dirt.
The jagged break in rules of law,
a red and screaming world of hurt.

The second turned in tavern light,
to reach for his hip-slung gun.
The outlaw stepped from womb of night,
before the coward’s draw was done.

The bullet punched through buttoned vest,
and bloomed just like a dark, wet rose.
It tore the lungs from a heartless chest,
while whiskey spilled upon his clothes.

The Sheriff stood in centre street,
with hand upon a walnut grip.
The outlaws glare like a dark heat,
a snarl upon a scarred-up lip.

The town was like a graveyard scene,
as the shadow stopped his pace.
With thirty yards of dust between,
the lawman and the ruined face.

"I left you dead," the Sheriff hissed,
“Face down within the gallows' mud.
I broke your body with my fist,
and soaked the dirt with your blood."

But outlaw’s hand was steady fist,
beneath the grey and winter sky.
The lawman drew through morning mist,
with panic in his yellow eye.

The silver bore gave flash and scream,
a bullet meant to kill once more.
But passed just like a fevered dream,
through heavy coat the shadow wore.

The outlaw’s iron gave its bark,
a thunder made of lead and flame.
It tore a hole through velvet dark,
and carved away the lawman’s name.

The slug hit star with lightning crack,
and drove the silver through the lung.
It pinned the Sheriff on his back,
with song of bloody vengeance sung.

He walked to him, both slow and grim,
as townspeople watched in dread.
He let the dying look at him,
before the world turned dark and red.

He didn't speak, he didn't pray,
just spat upon the bloodied street.
He watched the Sheriff’s soul decay,
beneath his soot and ashen feet.

The iron cooled within his grip,
the smoke drifted in the air.
A ghostly smile upon his lip,
he left the lawman lying there.

He turned his back on town and light,
and climbed the hill of rotted pine.
To step beyond the reach of night,
and cross that dark, eternal line.

The gallows stood against the sky,
where tattered lace still caught the breeze.
He heard a soft and lonesome sigh,
between the shadows of the trees.

He reached a hand to touch her face,
no longer cold, no longer grey.
Within that high and lonesome place,
the heavy shadows fell away.

The chains were gone, the mud was dry,
the violet veins had turned to gold.
No more to weep, no more to die,
within the ground so dark and cold.

Two spirits walked the summer grass,
beyond the reach of silver lies.
A love too deep for time to pass,
and darker than the winter skies.