The executioner wields his axe,
while the judges, they begin to wax,
about justice, rules, of course the law.
The crowd stands about, quiet with awe.

The convict is lowered to the block,
and the crowd is ready for the shock,
of the dead man meeting his end here,
while on his face, oddly, there’s no fear.

He’s one who has accepted his fate,
he expects to meet it on this date.
The tall dark hooded man steps up near.
the crowd quiets, for they want to hear.

In a smooth motion, the axe comes down.
The sick sound is heard by all in town.
The man is dead, his fate has been sealed,
and the townsfolk think their home is healed.

An innocent man, cut down, for sin,
the sin of the town that he lived in.
For it wasn’t he, but another.
The man had an evil twin brother.

A brother who stood by and then lied,
a brother who never even tried,
and nobody then would ever know,
the lengths to which the evil did go.

The brother had done many dark deeds,
and he had many many dark needs.
He liked to take a person’s last breath,
he reveled in violence and death.

He’d never been seen, for he’d been smart,
but he had torn families apart,
and he had no love for his brother,
or even any for his mother.

Justice needed. Up on a platter,
he placed his sibling. Didn’t matter.
It worked, and he got away with it,
and with that knowledge he did then sit.

He felt no remorse for what he’d done.
He would do the same to anyone.
The evil brother, who got away,
so he could kill, on another day.

Poetry