A few months ago I wrote a BLOG on Billy The Kid, after reading a book about him. Since that time I visited Fort Sumner and the museum there. I talked with a woman whose husband visited with a man who was there the night he was killed. So here is my poem about...
BILLY THE KID
Billy The Kid, killer, died at twenty-one
with one and twenty notches chiseled on his gun.
He left a world of mystery that moonlit July night
when Garrett's slug tore through his heart.
he died without a fight.
To some he was a hero of the Lincoln County war,
others saw him differently, and wouldn't go that far.
Billy stood before a judge and heard his sentence read:
" William Bonney will be hanged by the neck until he's dead."
With cuffs, and irons upon his legs; guards both night and day;
escape was nigh' impossible. A rope would make him pay.
Billy watched and waited...and when the moment came
he shot a deputy, Sam Bell, and added to his fame.
Another lawman died that day, there in New Mexico.
He held the town as hostages but finally let them go.
and galloped to Fort Sumner where he felt safety there.
No man would try to rat on him. He wouldn't have a prayer.
Word spread about that summer night that Billy had been shot
The crowd was ugly, cussing out Pat Garrett and his lot.
So, legend grew some more right then, the night that Billy died.
None, now could stop this epic tale, and few have even tried.
Henry Antrim, William Bonney, The Kid, (They added Billy)
told a story with his gun, a tale that's deadly chilly.
He laid to rest a lot of men, they numbered twenty-one.
No one lived who ever faced the barrel of his gun.
William Henry Antrim Bonney; alias the Kid; alias Billy The Kid
Born: September 17, 1859, New York City. Died: July 14, 1881,
Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
