The Angry Exile: Rage and bravery.

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

Friday 26 June 2009

Rage and bravery.

I wonder how angry this woman must have been to be this brave. I wonder if, despite my ranting and swearing at what are relatively small injustices in comparison to what Iranians have gone through, I will ever be angry enough to have done what she has done. I very much hope that this is Iran's Tiananmen moment, a gesture of unarmed defiance against tyranny that forms an image the world remembers for decades, perhaps forever, though I also hope it leads to much more much faster than in China. But even more I hope that this wonderful brave woman hasn't suffered the same fate as Neda Agha-Soltan, or indeed the nameless Chinese student who stood silently and defied a column of tanks, and may have been killed for it. The tree of liberty may need watering with blood from time to time, but while we should always hope for liberty we should also hope that the tree doesn't need blood today.

UPDATE: The thought's just occurred to me while leaving a comment at Shibby's that it might have been something other than bravery or rage. I'm sure they were both part of it, but maybe she'd just reached the point that without freedom or democracy or whatever it was that was driving her she simply didn't give a flying fuck anymore.

UPDATE 2: Looks like it's been Pshopped for a Western audience. I thought it looked genuine because of reflections in the metal above the car's rad grille, and it seems I was right about that. But the gesture has apparently been changed.

H/T Shibby.

4 comments:

Shibby said...: Thank you for the H/T!

I must say, flipping that bastard "the bird" must come with a great sense of satisfaction.

The person in question might face someone storming their home in later days or something so I hope they can't identify them.

Although I must say from my coward side, I'd rather flip the guy off than face the brutal gun-armed, axe-wielding maniacs working for him at protests.

There's less he can get away with personally and so there'd be less likelihood of a beating/murder, whereas a faceless official can get away with much more when only his co-workers are looking.; 26 June 2009 at 08:37
Shibby said...: In the comments on my post I left the URL to the source image (here).

I can't find any larger and it was linked directly from Reddit, so I don't think I can help you find a larger version.

Sorry.; 26 June 2009 at 09:04
Angry Exile said...: I'd rather flip the guy off than face the brutal gun-armed, axe-wielding maniacs working for him at protests.

Good point, though still risky I imagine as Ahmadinejad might not have been happy to have been on the receiving end of such a Western gesture, one popularized by the Great Satan no less. And worse still, it was done by a woman, which must have thrilled the misogynistic cunt no end. Yep, I expect he'd have been farting sparks over it, so lets hope no bodyguard or loyal hanger-on took it upon themselves to follow her afterwards and 'explain things'.; 26 June 2009 at 09:38
Roger Thornhill said...: The man's eyes are so close together he is Iran's own monocular moron.; 26 June 2009 at 20:45