Here lays the artful dodger,

Caught at last,

His ankles clasped,

By the chains,

Clanking through the eve,

The blood congregates to form a stain

The blood boils with a rage that seethes

 

Numbered days are upon him,

The gallows await,

Not resigned to his fate,

His head held high,

He lets off a mournful howl

Frightens off the birds of the sky,

Subject to the mockery of the night-fowl

 

A betrayal so blatant,

Blinding revelations unfold,

For the most ghastly truth untold,

The wind sighed in his ear,

He would have another chance,

His purpose was as water, clear,

The betrayer would die in the daze of a trance

 

The girl he had was beautiful,

That beauty would be his bane,

His joy would messily morph into pain,

Kisses would birth curses,

The loving sighs to waning gasps

Reciting all the verses,

Of the anthology that bore bloody masque

 

Well he beckoned to his love's call, 

The dodger surfaced with a whim of hatred stark,

A knife flashed silver in the dimming dark,

Not caring for the sum of blood he'd shed,

Left the traitor writhing in anguish,

As through his front, his gut protruded,

The treachery he'd committed demanded this

 

Then all came for the dodger again,

His escape route had been tracked,

Energy to get out, this time he lacked,

His reserves had all been spent,

All a sudden, all will escaped him,

Fate had betrayed him in the time it lent,

His neck was stretched until his eyes went dim.

 

Still his spirit is shackled,

Locked in hatred and despair,

Though his ghostly lungs have no need of air,

He wants again to breathe,

And he takes hold of children in the night,

Spirits them off as a thief,

And off beyond the extremities of mortal sight

 

For innocence, his appetite craves,

As the world he sees as bereft of near all,

Where the decent are branded by the fool,

The years stretch beyond the guess anyone may make,

As more and more children are born,

Still it remains the case to this day,

Some stay into night but are gone by the morn.