The Assassins

The assassins

There’s always one man who cannot be persuaded,
one man who won’t listen,
who quickly disappears into the crowd,
leaving you slumped and bleeding
on the palace steps.

And so it was, when they sent out six assassins,
men of the worst type,
more like brutes than men.

To the first - a huge hulk of a man
with an evil scar upon his face -
I said, I am a good man,
not a perfect man, I admit, but all things considered,
I’ve done nothing that would deserve
this treatment, and so I argued and pleaded
for an hour or more, until at last he put his gun away
and quietly walked from the room.

And to the second - a mean man
from a distant country - I said,
I have done this, I’ve done that in my life,
let me alone and there are yet more
remarkable things I might do,
why then do I deserve this treatment?
And after a while he too turned on his heel and left.

And to the next I spoke about my family,
my beautiful children,
my white-haired mother, and so on.
To the next I promised favours,
and to the next I said I am a man like you,
with hopes and feelings,
and spoke again in the same manner.

But when the sixth came,
He put his hand upon my arm, and said,
Don’t trouble yourself with speeches.
Reasons, excuses - mere words don’t interest me.
I have a task to do, and I shall do it.
And as I opened my mouth to answer him in a calm, reasonable manner -
he shot me with a single bullet through the heart.

There’s always one man who cannot be persuaded,