Damned Judgement

I have no idea what climbed inside my head and forced "Damned Judgement" out of my fingers.  I used to read a lot of Science-Fantasy books as a kid, so maybe that's where the images came from.  I borrowed the graphic at the bottom from a Frazetta print.  This is the darker, more sinister side of standing before the judgement of man and the flight or fight syndrome.  If you close your eyes, you can almost see what is about to befall the main character...

Damned Judgement

Marrow hardens in my bones, my joints too stiff to bend

Lightning flashes distantly, I turn to face my end

For there off in the distance a lone dead horseman rides

He's come to reap my heart and soul and feast upon my eyes

I cannot scream, though I do try - nor can I gasp or blink

My end now fast approaching my fate begins to sink

Into my mind - my lone escape - reality implodes

The outlook grim I turn to him my sanity erodes

The night had turned against me, the rain it beat the ground

The horseman whipped his steed about creating horrid sound

I could tell his eyes were sockets void of light and life

Humanity, insanity a lifetime filled with strife

He’d been a noble years ago but then was cursed to ride

Eternal upon battlefields where lord and serf had died

For he’d claimed himself a mistress two score his age in time

Upon that lass he’d cast his life and courted her with rhyme

His wanton heart the public knew and brought a rapid trial

Though steadfast in his love for her, he faced the great denial

That his sons might cast him out; his Queen’d cut off his balls

His kingdom sold for happiness in ashes round him falls

Faster now he bears ‘pon me his stallion spitting fire

My guts begin to boil inside though heaped upon a pyre

Slammed shut my throat denies me air my head begins to spin

In a battle for my life I surely cannot win

He draws his rusted battle axe and wields it o’er his head

With all intent of Hell spawned hate, he aims to strike me dead

I’ve not a chance except to pray that Fate might change its mind

That in a second’s fractured state some mercy he might find

Yet in the final moments before my life is snuffed

I flash back to the evening I truly fell in love

I too like my jury lord engaged a lass like he

Two decades marked my junior a flaxen deity

The draw was true for both us two the night we fantasized

That love no matter what the cost can be realized

And so I stand before the axe prepared to meet my end

Content in love and happiness I now die for my friend

With mercy gone, my life is done my choices rent with blood

Of the lives I took with just one look this lonely bastard’s son

The only difference ‘tween this king and his impassioned prey

Is that I choose to face my fate upon this judgment day