The Angry Exile: The Broon Effect.

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

Saturday, 4 July 2009

The Broon Effect.

To no great surprise plucky ~~Scottish Brit~~ ~~British Scot~~ Andy Murray has been knocked out of Wimbledon in the semi-finals, having had the curse of Broon's Doom laid upon him (not for the first time either) with the sub Prime Mentalist's good luck wishes. After that he was stuffed really, poor guy. The Jonah touch carries on, and worse still I see Murray claims Jonah wished him luck for the season rather than Wimbledon specifically. Fuck knows what'll happen next. Probably he'll fall and break an ankle or his hand will come flying off during a particularly strenuous serve. Sooner or later, preferably sooner for what sections of British sport and enterprise remain untouched by the curse, someone has to tell Gordon that if he really cares he should stop. Stop going into factories and businesses to shake hands in front of the TV cameras when invariably the poor sods either announce mass redundancies, closure of plant or offices, bankruptcy or all of the above within days of the visit. And stop wishing luck or expressing support for Britain's sportspeople and teams when experience shows it's the kiss of death.

I was going to suggest that the best way to achieve this would be for Gordon's mouth to be stapled up and for Lord Mandelsnake to lock him up in a box in the deepest ~~dungeon~~ ~~catacombs~~ cellar below Downing Street, away from any internet connection or phone the poor cursed creature could use to issue a PR supporting the next victim. There was more along those lines and how arrangements could be made to feed and water him, and perhaps how he could be prevented from passing good luck messages by allowing him contact only with carefully selected people who have absolutely no ability to speak English. John Prescott, for example. But I suddenly had a minor epiphany - what if the curse of the Manse could be used as a force for good? What if instead of wishing luck to a British company or sportsperson he could be persuaded to express support for something the world could really do without? The seed of this idea was when I was reading of Murray's defeat and thought to myself "why couldn't that fucking monocular jinx have wished the best of luck to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in the Iranian election instead?" Followed swiftly by one of those Heeeyyyyy moments. The possibilities are endless. Get Jonah in front of a few TV cameras saying how he very much hopes that Bin Laden will continue to evade capture and the bearded basket case will probably move camp by darkness and inadvertently wander into the middle of the largest US Marine Corps base. Have him express admiration for swine 'flu and the work ethic it shows in spreading around the world and it'll probably peter out in days. Some warm words about Kim Jong Il and Robert Mugabe and how their people are better off with them in charge could change North Korea and Zimbabwe forever. We could even get him to wish that the Australian drought continues so we get the rainfall we need to fill the dams up. Disease, nuclear weapons, dictators, famines, another fucking OTT story-less, effects reliant, bullshit based disaster movie by Roland Emmerich, basically anything people hate or fear, we could put an end to the lot. I believe that Broon genuinely wishes he could make the world a better place, and I think I've seen how he really could.

We could be putting up statues of the man after all.