Rose Petal

An old oak stands in the market square,
In the patch where the meadow-grass grows,
One day I met a young murderess there,
Pulling petals from the head of a rose,
She cast them down as she cursed this town,
And she winked when she captured my eye,
For a man lay dead by the old mill stream,
And she was the reason why.

Then the hue and cry rang through the square,
As the mob caught the scent of it's prey,
They bayed like hounds to have found her there,
And they howled as they hauled her away,
I saw on the ground lying prone to be found,
What was left of the flower she'd held,
With a single petal that yet remained,
How beautiful it smelled.

They raised a scaffold up high in the square,
And the ghouls rushed in, in their throngs,
On Sunday at dawn they hanged her there,
Overjoyed to be righting such wrongs,
I pressed on a thorn till my flesh was torn,
And the blood ran into my coat,
As I clung to the rose that once she'd held,
And stifled a scream in my throat.

Think of me what you must,
Now nothing remains but rust,
And the pious faces,
Of these kings of nothing,
Flower in to empty smiles,
Then fade to dust.

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