The Death of a King

The bards of old were impeccable in their deceit.

They sung of great battles,

their words solidified

and became paintbrushes to us blank sheets,

drawing skies tinted lavender

mirroring bloodstained fields and rivers,

they drew great armies of men charging

with triumphant roars and flashing swords;

they painted beautiful earls of great houses of old

and lustrous princes for us to behold,

and of kings!

Kings able to slay hundreds of men,

that laughed heartily to the reaper's face,

that cleaved through any shield and mace

with divine power.

But I have seen the death of a king;

death cares not for nobility,

nor man's illusions of grandeur,

it craves those hearts of men so foolish

to consider themselves gods,

it is the bane of the man so bold

to think himself greater than the sum of his parts,

it feasts on the ignorance bred from intelligence

the desperate yearning for immortality

and on the inability of itself to be accepted.

I have seen the death of a king;

first an arrow through his steed,

oh how I wished he would fall so slowly

like a great mountain that finally crumbles,

surely his Majesty must fall majestically

but alas!

barely a second would pass,

before he would greet the earth with a dull thud.

And through the chaos of limbs and sweat

burst forth a single soldier,

perhaps a conscripted farming man,

driving his blade through the finest chain mail

decorated with glowing gems

that could buy a village.

I have seen the death of a king;

death cares not for wealth,

even el Dorado in time will be nothing more

than skeletal frames and gold dust galore;

exorbitant armor having failed him,

the king's eyes betray his mortality:

there is the moment of disbelief

when cold steel burns soft flesh,

the pure shock!

That even he bleeds just as red?

For a moment he knows then,

the grave reality of mortal men,

but only for a moment;

sword striking solid skull

rendering every royal thought null.

And there lies a dead king,

amidst discarded and torn common men,

with nobody to tell the difference.