Noises lurking deep in the shadows,
As haunting the soul destined for the gallows,
He knows his time is nigh it’s end,
He only has but moments to spend.
As the trickling sand is wearing thin,
He’s tortured by his egregious sin,
Death’s dreadful presence a companion to him,
Now as his life Cup is at it’s brim.
Death row has been his home these many years,
Where thoughts and nightmares drew his tears,
Justice now demands it’s heavy wage,
After passing time in his rotting cage.
His crime a dastardly wicked deed,
The gavel’s harshest sentence ever decreed,
He marches closer his final hour,
For at death’s door, No man has power.
The creaking wooden gallows his final sound to hear,
Aside from the mocking multitudes joyful cheer,
Upon a box he stands with hands bound tight,
Breathing in his final air on that blackened night.
He faces the crowd he wronged so great,
As they snug the noose to seal his fate,
The hangman requests his last words be spoken,
His heart is pounding now as silence is broken.
He shouts, “I may be hanged for crimes I’ve done,
But I tell you now, I’m not the only one,
There be many in this crowd this eve,
Their crimes be heinous and yet, unseen.
You see my darkest evil, is public spectacle,
Yet, blacker hearts among us, remain undetectable,
I know I’m viewed a monster, ‘Tis true!
But take no haste to see not the monster in you!”
His speech echoed o’re the silenced crowd,
All now was quiet where once was loud,
They did not soon forget this lesson learned,
From a criminal who in their memory is burned.
Take heed to his message as here ye tred,
In the land of the living, before your dead,
Before condemning A guilty monster’s head,
Consider always the Monster in you instead.
