After More Than a Decade of Silence...
I broke out my Rhymes...Someone tell the streets...

(For my new writing project (here at: http://friendsofjunior.blogspot.com/ ), I wrote my first poem in probably...12-15 years...it's probably not gonna win me that Poet Laureate post, but I figured I'd share it.)

Atop the wind and through the blighted snow,
A dark form led by a rusted pistol.
Light falls dim, but the whiteness holds the glow,
The crusted center of a clear crystal.
The lurching figure brings little but woe,
Against the white, a shadow most wistful.
Behind, his footfalls burn stark cold to mud,
A trail of tramplings, ringèd red with blood.

He searches not lustful jewel or gold,
The beloved symbols of man’s precious boon,
No warmth, no bright shelter sought through the cold
Nor ghost ferry across to the moon.
The goal of his trek his spirit does hold,
The result of a wrong done in time now old.
At the end of a trail of rough red slush,
An ember of black hate to feel the crush.

A town far behind, a tavern stinking,
A long bar, wooden floor with sawdust strewn.
More whisky, more wine, the time for drinking.
Merriment turns to misery too soon.
From the doorway the men begin shrinking,
Evil arrived bringing a flood of maroon.
One after the next they fell with a thud,
Only one survived this deep crimson flood.

Ahead a frozen tree amidst the ice,
A wind burned monument of wintry strife.
Against which, a body, a goal to entice,
A fight, a struggle, the form of a knife.
But to the wind, this rogue has paid the price,
A lump, a stone, a statue, bereft of life.
No duel, no justice, no fate by daggers.
Into the future, onward, he staggers.

Always before him, the frosted barrel,
Forever encrusted with windswept blades.
It guides, it searches a most mortal peril,
The future beyond still hidden in shades.
Our hunter, the wild makes ever more feral,
The hero, a conqueror of cold Hades.
Behind, his footfalls burn stark cold to mud,
A trail of tramplings, ringèd red with blood.