The Lynching

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The Lynching is a narrative epic in 10 clerihew rhyming quatrains of mixed meter written in 316 words centered for aesthetic symmetry.

Image by me, silhouette of The Lynching.

The Lynching

Oh how it is, to be an oak tree, 
one time a nut and now mighty. 
One time blooming in the bright sunlight, 
now it is tarnished by winter’s blight. 

So hideous and putrid the acts of man, 
even the vultures dare not perch near the stand. 
For a simple man hangs up in the tree, 
from a rope laid over a bow and tied tightly. 

He was once a boy filled with laughter and cheer, 
when as a boy he played here. 
The boy loved swinging from the mighty oak tree; 
with all the other children, they played with glee. 

Long after the sun set for the night, 
the stars came out to dazzle so bright. 
The boy would sleep beneath that tree, 
under the havens and dream of glee. 

A child forever he dreamed at night, 
of a potential future that shone so bright. 
However, the children that played so near, 
he loved so much and loved so dear. 

Like flowers in a vase of vinegar and spite, 
closed their petals in anger and blight. 
As the seasons passed and the leaves on the ground, 
the children stopped playing and coming around. 

They became fewer and fewer to see, 
until the only ones left were he and the tree. 
Many years later they returned to the stand, 
an angry mob with weapons in hand. 

Dressed in sheets all of white, 
they prowl the stand in the night. 
They are hunting for an innocent man, 
to play a game of hate in the stand. 

A simple man hangs in the tree, 
if only the tree had a voice like me. 
To speak to the children of this tale, 
so the next generation will not fail. 

Oh how it is, to be an oak tree, 
one time a nut and now mighty. 
One time blooming in the bright sunlight, 
now it is tarnished by winter’s blight. 

By 
Josehf Lloyd Murchison

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