Ronin, Pt. 2: Centipede

Two tracks on snow
Two demons on the roam
Death row crowing, composing and low blowing
His death cell blues
Two truths he clings to
Blues and roots.
Six months on the run
Form the hounds, burnt lungs
Death knell guarded
From being unsung and pardoning
The grim outcasts
Abandoned and floating
Like lost rodents

Smoke spires transcend to heaven's end
Signal the two wrecked heart and hand.
Apart from white breath and black coals
Left guessing the quietness
Of a hollowed out soul.
Mercenaries turn the dirt.
Searching prey to quench their thirst.
Burnt sap and tracks haphazardly
Covered by snowy tapestry
Thieves on the hunt for souls.
Grand larceny.
The shadows of wolves
Grow massive on the snow
Glowing dawn, size lying
Ten times larger than their lives.
They surround the camp,
Stamp out the dying fire.
Thrust out and cut down
A prize for hungry eyes
Roped up, tied up tongue
At the base of a trunk, a lone monk
Inquest the missionary
He guides the mercenaries.
Points west and places his bets
The rest had better scatter
To counter the cloak and daggers
And trapping the last attacker
A ronin with grass sandals
Gourd and sword.
A flash of steel
A swift repeal,
Heels feeling frozen hills.
A moment, the lone priest
Steals clear, swept blind and
The vandal leaves his scene.

What I need a master for?
For a skill? For a sword?
That's that venom voice
Ain't nothing but white noise
Ain't even a tight choice
I really gotta explain
What they're asking for?
Got a skill
Got a sword
So what I need a master for?

The vagrants they thieve the night
Awake under blinded skies
Lying wise and undignified.
Warm smolders and cold shoulders
The dimness of glowing embers
"Remember the rigidness
When defending the wicked press
And why we're in this mess
Confessing them blatant lies
Adjacent to playing complacent
'Til the mob arrives."
The ronin throws his lowblowing woes
But the monk got his mind wound up in souls:
"There's a point in venom-mindedness
When bitterness falls to one side of this,
And the taste of poison grows strangely broken
Unfocused, it opens more aromas
A warmth of closeness and sweet kindliness."
But the vagrant's steady in his vacant credit
"I said it the day I left it when I put it to bed.
Man's only strong as survival's kept him.
Revived by pressures set him
Relying on life sentence
Or death your only weapon.
Protecting yourself precious.
Forget it but for your profit."
Still the monk persists,
Resists with urgent skill:
"Perhaps your way's efficient,
Effective and well sufficient.
But hearts will bleed at love's omission.
One's only so strong as the strength of his devotion
Compulsion to block repulsion
Compulsion to help the helpless
Til restless we finally face this:
That placed in danger's way,
We'll suffer our weight in pain."
The vagrant shakes his head and lays
His eyes on torn grass and sighs with scorn glass:
"Ain't the burden of hurting people
Played like vermins on broken needles?
Ain't they deserving of certain suffering
To lay my fate in chains,
Dressed plain in fitted sermons?
Oughta know tenfold
The vengeance of whom they purchased.
What they done to you and me,
They won't do it to no one else.
That, I'll guarantee with my only soul."
The vagrants they thieve the night
Awake under blinded skies
Lying wise and undignified.

What I need a master for?
For a skill? For a sword?
That's that venom voice
Ain't nothing but white noise
Ain't even a tight choice
I really gotta explain
What they're asking for?
Got a skill
Got a sword
So what I need a master for?

A streak of fire it splits the night
Blinded sights vibrate the twilight.
A centipede retreats into a hollow tree
Its carapace shines by the moon's design.
The monk grabs the ronin
Rolls them down the ground and
With urgency cries:
"Gotta flee here in dark disguise.
They ain't got a line of sight.
By the time they find us,
We'll be dead by fire,
Gotta book it to that line of trees."
But the ronin jerks forth,
Composes his worn sword:
"There's no more of this."
Snow pours forth
In the silent clearing.
Beset by those outsiders
Movements fettered by the prowling
As weathered steel strikes
White flashes peeled back
Behind moonlight reeled back
Swift blades sing, kneeled back
As knees break his silent back
Down again
Into a ditch split in stitches,
Sees movement by the trees.
Bruised truant in the weeds.
Heeds the cold rolling sky and hills.
Blood flowing fluid in his ears
Thump thumping like a beat
Breaks free from gravity
Grip the iron from his feet
Metal matches metal
Plunges somewhere warm and soft.
Another flash of steel,
Another against his heel,
Hands start feeling cold
Leaning hard on soiled steel
Like a deer, his final meal,
Looks up and sees
That the monk is dead
Snow spread red
Like a final thread of life
Melting ice beside his heavy head.

What I need a master for?
For a skill? For a sword?
That's that venom voice
Ain't nothing but white noise
Ain't even a tight choice
I really gotta explain
What they're asking for?
Got a skill
Got a sword
So what I need a master for?

Splattered red, the emblem resembling
Three stacked diamonds
Defending with proud stance
He's standing on bought land
The priest-killer branding
His blade aimed at the vagrant's brain.
"Your brother's no more,
The way you did my own.
Ain't slaying you though,
Gotta know your pain is thorough.
You know how vengeance plays.
You sang for my ending everyday."
The ronin he plants his bone
In the stone and
His chrome is thrown,
Feet stolen and broken,
His blade made plain
In moonlight and splitting pain.
His vision it breaks and gains
He's swimming in darker days.
His last sensation
Fell to last temptation
Redemption is out of reach
He speaks to preach
But sleep is all he needs.
A centipede speeds
Across the bleeding chrome
Scuttles and trails silent
Behind the mercenaries
Carrying two bodies,
The ronin and missionary,
The shape of two wrecked heart and hand.