Red Barn (Cold Cold Heart)

/ Daniel Swearingen

Cold, cold heart!

On 14 just toward the bend in the road, toward the prairie grassland, where wild banshee’s roam.  On 14 there where there is an old farm, guards the opening of Sheol, stands the old red barn.  So I stand here alone, and I feel the hot wind, of a thousand voices, of a thousand sins.  I think some are within, and they sing all the same, if they be in or out, they say don’t you please want to stay.

And I wonder to myself, as my spine turns into chills, would the moon upon this night turn my fate into a kill?  Would my soul go deep inside, where it might be never found, would my actions be a coward, could my future be never still.

Cold, cold heart!

I suppose the red barn once upon a time held hay, or just a horse or two, before the devil came to play, and made the barn pay its due.  It could be just inside near the hooks, where the sheep would lay, there was an unease about the future of darkened days.  And standing in this sun, and standing still I do, I can’t but help but think, what it is about this red barn that made a mad man do what insane men do.

For Sharpe he was a wise man, who started on that day, with his face as red, as a dying star, to do his wife and friend away.  And he ran his Ford from Ault, with two hooks in the back, and he drove on down 14, to take his missus back.  For Sharpe he was desirous to have what was lacked, to bring the spirit of divorce to bring it to a fact.

Cold, cold heart!

In his eyes he saw a red barn, as magenta as his face, and inside of that old red wood, lay his wife upon her back.  And Sharpe he pictured murder, oh he pictured his friend’s back, moving up and down upon his dear wife, in their passion they did not lack.

So I stood upon the highway with the sun burning red, and it showed the paint was peeling from the red barn where Sharpe attacked.  And it seemed I heard the screams now, as the hooks came raining fire, or it could be banshees laughing, as they brought the dead on back.  And I thought about my thinking, of waiting on the moon, to see what would happen, or think what if it could.  And I moved myself transfixed then, not determined in anyway, and thought maybe it better to wait another day.  So I drove on to the highway and I headed my way home, and I passed an oncoming Ford pickup truck, with a man looking onward.  His face was red, and his eyes were rolled on back.

Cold, cold heart!

Eddie Sharpe murdered his wife Edith and best friend Drew, in a red barn that sits off of Highway 14 near the Pawnee National Grasslands on Monday, August 8, 1960.  The barn is said to be haunted, and it certainly appears that way to me. – 08.08.2016 – דָּנִיֵּאל

41 thoughts on “Red Barn (Cold Cold Heart)”

  11. I loved this. I tried to find some reference on-line to the characters and could not, but then thought may be the names have been changed to protect the innocent. 😉 This was really good…

    Like

    Reply

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