My Three Friends

My Three Friends
by Louis L'Amour



I have three friends, three faithful friends,
More Faithful could not be–
And every night, by the dim firelight,
They come to sit with me.
~~~
The first of these is tall and thin
With hollow cheeks, and a toothless grin;
A ghastly stare, and scraggly hair,
And an ugly lump for a chin.
~~~
The second of these is short and fat
With beady eyes, like a starving rat–
He was soaked in sin to his oily skin,
And verminous, at that.
~~~
The crouching one is of ape-like plan,
Formed like a beast that resembled man:
A freakish thing, with arms a-swing,
And he was the third of that gruesome clan.
~~~
The first I stabbed with a Chinese knife,
And left on the white beach sand,
With his ghastly stare, and blood soaked hair,
And an out-flung, claw-like hand;
~~~
The fat one stole a crumbling crust,
That he wolfed in his swineish way–
So I left him there, with eyes a glare,
An his head cut off half-way.
~~~
We fought to kill, the brute and I,
That the one that lived might eat,
So I killed him too, and made a stew,
And dined on human meat.
~~~
And so these three come to visit me,
When without the night winds howl–
The one with the leer, the one with a sneer,
And the one with a brutish scowl;
~~~
Their lips are dumb, but the three dead come
And crouch by the hollow grate–
The man that I stabbed, the man that I cut,
And the gruesome thing that I ate.
~~~
Their lips are sealed, with blood congealed,
But they will not let me be,
And so they haunt, grim, ghastly, and gaunt,
Till death shall set me free.
~~~
I have three friends, three faithful friends,
More Faithful could not be–
And every night, by the dim firelight,
They come to sit with me.


https://rhymenreview.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/a-friendly-poem-for-friday-the-13th/