Poem: Bloodrose

Deep in the valleys of the Thorn Mountains

Grows the Bloodrose, taking life from the weak

Of moral stature, spewing great fountains

Of crimson fluid to restore the meek

Who have done no harm to the flowers sleek

Which sprout up from the newly blood-drenched earth

And bask in not sunrays, but the blood creek

That flows from the flowering point of birth.

The pure of heart will thank the tall, red flowers

And go about their ways, feeling remorse

For villains slain, despite many hours

Strapped to the backside of a speeding horse;

For although life will take its evil course,

Being glad of riddance will transform one

Into but the very same, dark sort of force

That prior to this sought to reform one.

One will begin to wonder at this:

Do the roses really have the full right

To take blood from others, a deathly kiss

To restore the righteous back to the light?

Must they inspire such amounts of cold fright

In other evil hearts, to serve and judge?

There will surely be a storm, a great fight,

To reduce the Bloodroses to scarlet sludge.

The Bloodroses have served their awful ways

And now the time has gone to give them praise:

The restored must make a choice: will they turn

Against the very flowers which did raise

Them from the hateful, white, glowering blaze

In which the unjust must surely now burn?