The Swordsman

The Swordsman is my most popular poem, I think, at least judging from the responses I've gotten at readings and online. People have told me that they find it accessible because it tells a story in simple terms. What do you think of the story? Of the poem?

One hint: the thing that I describe in this poem happened to me. Do you know what it is? Has it happened to you?

The Swordsman
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The cold katana cut my flesh today.
He gripped my pound of meat without a sound;
he ripped my chest and dropped it on the ground
in murmured worship, not a yard away.

I lingered, wavered with the evening breeze,
which once so fresh, now stole a copper tone.
My murderer was one whom I had known:
the swordsman bent to death upon his knees.

I mourned my heart a minute, and was done --
my enemy had taken what was his,
and I had let him take it, truth be told,
for I would not be his next bastard son,
and I need not that heart in me to live --
then my katana swung, and left him cold.
This text © 2004 John David Robinson, all rights reserved. Duplication prohibited without written consent.