The Angry Exile: Edging towards sanity...

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

Monday 13 September 2010

Edging towards sanity...

... but no doubt infuriating the Righteous.

A number of hospitals are reintroducing "smoking shelters". They are doing so on health grounds: not, of course, because they have changed their minds about the hazards of cigarettes – that really would be a spectacular medical U-turn – but because patients have been caught smoking in dangerous places. Stairwells, lavatories, storerooms: nowhere except the operating theatre is safe, it seems. Some patients have even been caught smoking next to the oxygen store.

The normal pattern of prohibition. Take away the opportunity to be reasonable and sensible by removing smoking rooms and what else is going to happen? Don't get too excited, though. It says 'shelters' not smoking rooms, and The Teletubbygraph was helpless to resist the temptation for a little Righteous style dig at smokers implying they should give up and that they wouldn't be in hospital if they had.

There are a few more stressful experiences than a stay in hospital, and it is not an easy time to give up. So let the patients puff away in their shelters – reflecting, perhaps, that if they had kicked the habit earlier they might not be there in the first place.

Oh, really? I was still a smoker on my last visit to hospital and it had fuck all to do with what I was going in for. In fact I've never been to hospital for anything related to smoking or any other lifestyle choice I'd made. Nor was it at all stressful being unable to smoke because they had me off my tits on morphine - that drug of instant evil that a previous generation of Righteous had banned - and what a success story that wasn't. The fact I subsequently gave up smoking and never became a heroin addict suggests I'm either unusual, and I assure you I'm not, or that there's a lot of bullshit being peddled by those who love telling others how to live.

Which of course is what the Righteous themselves are addicted to.

3 comments:

Bucko said...: I havent set foot in a hospital since I started smoking.
I once picked up a friend and a guy in a high viz jacket took a photo of my reg plate while I was parked in the waiting area.; 13 September 2010 at 19:47
Angry Exile said...: That you, Bucko, or Hal pretending to be you?; 13 September 2010 at 21:28
Bucko said...: It's me. Hal's been sorted, although I had to slap him about a bit.; 13 September 2010 at 22:50