(04) - Hunter Of The Dead Poem by James Grengs

He is a strong man,
Physically,
Mentally,
Emotionally.
He has been far in his thirty years.
-Can thirty match a thousand?
Experience that strong is power.-
He knows much of his enemy:
Many and varied,
The weapons with which he defends
The living;
But greater in power is
The fire in his heart-
Belief,
The enemy's worst fear.

He alone of the living
Walks the mists of the night,
The home, the only safe haven
Of his prey.
Hunter, hunted.
Hunted, hunter.

The evil of the night-
His goal, his target.
Darkness,
Friend and foe.
He knows the evil,
Has long fought against it,
Wrestling it in
A grim parody of love.

Many,
The Hunters he has destroyed-
Defeating their haunted souls,
Banishing them from the earth,
Into darker realms.

Many,
The lives of the living he has saved-
Last minute rescues,
Pulling the victims from the mouths of the dead
-From the mouths of the abyss
Of the eternal nightmare.-

He has been called many names,
But he has forgotten them all:
Thirty years of living in darkness
Will drive men insane.
The living have called him mad,
And well, for so he is.
The dead have many names for him-
They call him Nemesis,
Anathema,
Hunter:
All these he is, to them.
Also, he is their fear,
And their only fear.

He had known her,
Newest.
He had loved her,
Before she was changed.
She had been his,
His love,
His life-
His only grip on sanity
In the insanity of his dark world.

He had seen her
When she was buried.
-For a while-
He knew her father
According to his enemies.
(The dark thing who changed her.)
Long had he hunted
The thousand year hunter.
Long had he been near the darkness.
But this time, too far
For her.
-Newest-
He felt the loss
More strongly than most:
He knew the method of her change,
And -worse- he knew
What she had become.
His lover, once.
His enemy, now.

She, too, knew what she had become.
Her heart, the final thread of her humanity,
Remembered him, though
Her mind did not.

His twilight,
The horror in which he lived,
-The Nemesis of the dead
Lives, exists, in fear of them-
Was darkened further by his loss.

The Hunter of the dead,
Alone,
Must now face
His ultimate fear:
His love, dead,
Changed,
Has become
His enemy.