To any soul that cares I breathe, I am the drunken hangman,
My disgrace great as was the power I laid to rest in quicksand.
They used to send for me by car, assign me spacious quarters,
Had all the whisky I could drink, had but a single order.
And I stood in this world alone
And those who paid me hated me,
The heart inside me like a stone,
This man you never want to see.
My clients did not know me long, in wooden rooms stood trembling.
The final one I barely touched, for I was barely standing.
A warder strangled him instead, it took him 7 minutes.
That warder looked at me, enraged, and said, 'your life is finished'.
And in the boarding houses since
I toast my age with lemonade
Recent memories are few
There's just a single fragment of one day
The wonder of her smile
There in the silent kitchen
Woman, angel, child,
In the pale light, mixing.
The wonder of her smile
One bright winter's morning
And the time stood still -
Did, will,
Always.
"What does this mean?" I gasped in joy, imagining redemption,
She glanced away and squinted back, in vexed incomprehension.
She said, 'Why must it be explained? I've taken nothing from you;
I was just smiling at the day, and you're that drunken hangman.'
She left the boarding-house,
Human and unmoved and so composed,
A world of feelings gaped at me,
As cancers stirred in all my weary bones.
I felt now what I'd feared to know -
Unselfish love - at far too late an hour.
I will not be lonely, though,
As ridicule and anguish mop my brow.
The wonder of her smile
Skin opaquely gleaming
Her long arms draped down the back of a chair
Standing proud in the dusty air
The wonder of your smile
May good fortune bind you
To its deathless heart
May those you desire see you as I do.
And I will strain and ache
'Til my light's last dimming
For that gaze which said,
'Here I am
Here I am...'