THE EXECUTIONER’S AXE

As an exercise for Margo Roby’s Tuesday’s tryouts, http://margoroby.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/tuesday-tryouts-poetic-counterpoints/, we were to come up with a list of poetic counterparts. As a joke, I included a list of the methods of capital punishment. Then, it wouldn’t let it go. I had to write this, but I started with the intent to compare the efficiency(?) of the methods, but that didn’t happen. Instead, I get this, and it’s the first poem I’ve ever written that scares me. It frightens me that something like this lived within me. I had to get it out so that I can go back and complete a poem from a less drastic counterpoint on my list.

THE EXECUTIONER’S AXE
by Mike Patrick

Flickr image by rinpoche

Ah, the days of spectacle;
the last tumbrel ride,
laughter and screams
echoing in the courtyard.

The slow plod of the oxen
pulling the peasants’ cart,
bringing me my beloved,
bound and slobbering in fear.

So precious, that fear
when first they see me
leaning against the dark stained block;
edge, keen and freshly honed,

shining in the sun.
The thud of a hundred feet,
stomping in unison,
mocks the sweetness of my coming fall.

Wrestled from the cart
and bound across my bloody block,
the condemned no longer screams.
Acceptance comes at last.

My comrade, in his cowl and mask,
lifts me gently off the ground.
With a soft caress
he strokes my oaken length,

as once again, the crowd goes wild.
His muscles flex,
I rise high,
and silence takes control.

I split the air
as down I fall
in exhilaration;
ending in a satisfying . . .chunk.

I take my bows
as my comrade holds me aloft.
Amid cheers and applause
a sweet, metallic aroma fills the air.