The Angry Exile: The government you deserve...

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

The government you deserve...

People of the Unhinged Kingdom, a brief word if I may?

Are you fucking thick or what? How can over 30% of you rate Gordon Clown and his mob as ahead on the NHS, education, affordable housing and welfare reform? The NHS is an over-managed bureaucracy, the nation's schools turn out millions of uneducated dullards capable only of passing exams that would barely test a fucking chicken, the provision of affordable housing helped create the fucking financial crisis and push half the world's economies into the shitter, and all Gordon's done with welfare reform in nearly twelve fucking years is to make it complicated to understand and fucking hard to wean yourself off of. The only thing they've been any fucking good at is turning the Labour Party into IngSoc and shaving away a little more of your freedom every day. Can you not see that spunking away untold billions on these and other public services is a large part of how the country got fucked? Do you not understand that the money has now run out? And you seriously want more of the same?

Well fine, in that case I hope the cunts win. I hope they win and spend the next five years so severely fucking you all that eventually you'll cry at the very sight of one of them. And then I hope they fuck you a bit more. And if after that you still prefer them in charge then I hope they win again and discover the fountain of youth so Gordon can stay there forever (if he wants to he's practically there already apart from the immortality bit), or until someone else from that shower of bastards can take over, so they can carry on fucking you. Personally I'd rather wipe my arse with a rusty cheese grater than vote for them but clearly enough of you are queueing up to kowtow to the architects of your own ruin, so if that's what you want then fuck you. Fuck you and fuck them. I'm off that stinking shit infested pile of rock and never have to go back, and for the majority who don't want to spend the next five years gripping their ankles in pain and humiliation I'd strongly suggest you do the same. Leave the sycophants and client state behind and let the whole fucking shooting match implode. When the last the last of them has eaten himself because the country has produced fuck all apart from unnecessary laws and fucking cameras for so long then those who don't mind the crappy weather can move back, brush the mess into a landfill, concrete it over and start again.

Oh hang on a mo. I've just re-read that and it's compared to the Tories. Sorry, of course you really are about as fucked with that lot of clueless twats as you are with Gordon Clown & Co. Obviously one must technically be better than the other but it's practically impossible to tell which and relatively insignificant anyway. As with most (but certainly not all) of the alternatives you'll just get fucked slightly more gently and maybe get a kiss and a little foreplay first. There may be better choices available in the future, and we should all hope so, but in the meantime you might be best hoping for a hung Parliament. And I don't necessarily mean no overall control.

Apologies.