Free Verse Poetry

The guillotine
The streets of Paris are red.
Aristocrats are lined up, one by one.
Eyes dull and lifeless,
Their splendor muddy and grimy.

One by one they are lead.
Up to the guillotine.
And one by one, the guillotine
Slowly claims more lives.

Widows and children look out from doorways,
No way to get food.
Gaunt faces show the hunger
These people face.

The crowd cheers as the judge
Yells “Guilty!”.
The aristocrat is pushed up the stairs.
Without warning, the guillotine falls.

This, my friend, is the French Revolution.