The Angry Exile: There's just no getting away from it

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 30 April 2011

There's just no getting away from it - UPDATED

Apparently, if this morning's papers are to be believed, in England a quite pretty girl called Kate has married an apparently quite nice bloke called William, who happens to be a prince.

Click for embiggerfication and extra brain damage

This is of such resounding importance that there's even a special Google Doodle for it. I can only assume that since this is this morning's news rather than yesterday evening's news this must be an entirely separate story to that of Prince William marrying long term partner Kate Middleton yesterday. That Channel 7 were showing just before the Sydney vs Carlton game, and which they marked by some complete bollocks about the match being a meeting of footy royalty and a special commemorative coin being used for the toss. And which we just had to hear about in an update at half time.

We fucking know, okay? Give it a fucking rest.

Yes, yes, very nice, happy couple, hooray, and Harry resisted the temptation to draw an enormous shaving foam cock on the bonnet of the car or put a turbot on the exhaust pipe.* And absolutely nothing else happened overnight, did it?

< sarc > Not much, apparently. Oh, some tornados killed some people,
but they weren't royal and probably not as pretty. < /sarc >

Look, media fucknuts, there are more important things going on than the bloody royal wedding, okay? We do not need to hear every single last trivial detail about her aunt who bought them a blender from John Lewis because she always buys a blender as a wedding gift, or his distant cousin who bought the gold plated 18 slice custom made toaster and a man to turn it on and off. We don't need to hear how Phil the Bubble said something offensive at the reception, or that Charles made an arse of himself dancing, or about whether Harry got off with both the bridesmaids. And the only people who really need to hear where they are honeymooning are the people who've taken the bookings, though with the continuing policy of invasive and highly personal physical searches by the TSA I'd advise them against going to the US unless they're either exempted or up for someone copping a feel of their new spouse.

Honestly, unless it turns out that David Icke was right all along and that either Kate Middleton is also a shape shifting lizard being and always has been (or is going to be turned into one - I'm really not sure how it's supposed to work) you really can stop now. Report something else, anything else.

Please?

UPDATE - Thanks to Dick Puddlecote leaving a comment about how Aussie PM and part time republican Gingery Dullard's shit hat I had to go looking at pictures. Dick was quite right but in fairness to Jules hers wasn't the worst. I genuinely laughed out loud when I saw Princess Bea's beige door knocker hat and the nightmare image of Tara Powder-Tomkinson with a giant blue vagina nailed to her head by a rose will haunt me forever.

* Actually this is very old hat. Every intelligent royal groom these days knows that he should check the exhaust for turbot. If a royal best royal man wants to stink the car up he should put some Beluga caviar down the heater vents.