The Angry Exile: Short memories.

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 9 January 2010

Short memories.

Via Polaris:

Wait, what? No domestic terror attacks under Bush but you've had one under Obama? Mate, remind us, where were you when this happened?

Oh yeah, you were the Mayor of the fucking city it happened in... eight months after Bush became President.

I really haven't got any more time for Obama than I had for Bush but give the man a break - you can't just claim that some fucknuts trying and failing to bring down a plane in Detroit by the novel means of extreme fart lighting is a terror attack, and then in the same breath blithely ignore one involving the hijack and crashing of no less than four passenger aircraft, three of them into occupied buildings.

So, to pose the obvious question, what the fuck is Giuliani talking about? Polaris seems to think he's a fucking idiot, a politician and therefore a professional liar, who's finally spun himself into a corner and tripped himself up. Could be, I suppose, though I thought perhaps he might have been thinking that since the people who planned the 9/11 attacks began during the Clinton era Giuliani might naturally think of it as having happened almost entirely on the Democrats' watch. Bit of a stretch perhaps, but beyond a politician, someone whose natural instinct is to seek a way to blame the opposition? But the other thing that springs to mind is the whole 'we've always been at war with Eastasia' feeling that seems to be growing in western nations. Maybe even people like Giuliani have bought into it to such an extent that the matter of how, why, where and when it began has started to become irrelevant and they're falling into the default position of 'we in this party handle this stuff better than they in that party.' September 11th itself, awful though it was, is starting to become distant enough to be overlooked.

Or, as Polaris said, he's just a fucking idiot.

3 comments:

Rob F said...: At least he didn't try to claim that Dubya saved the world. Come to think of it, neither did Dubya.

I seem to remember some leader or other saying that about themselves, though. Hang on a mo, it'll come to me in a minute...; 9 January 2010 at 10:43
Dick Puddlecote said...: Can't find your e-mail anywhere, so sorry about this O/T comment. One for you?; 10 January 2010 at 06:21
Angry Exile said...: Could be, if I have time. Maybe tomorrow as it might be too hot to leave the house, which I appreciate mightn't be the sort of thing people want to hear when they're snowed in. Sorry. But look at it this way: it's easier to warm up in the cold than to cool down in the heat. And yes, DP, there's no email contact on the blog and there probably should be. I've avoided because I don't want to attract spam but I'll look into the best ways around that.; 10 January 2010 at 09:20