Hanged Poem by Dann Thomas

Strangely, a bright and happy morn,
For a day that ends, a soulless moan.
It's when man's laws would end
The life of God's forsaken.

The gallows stark and empty of hope,
the stench of death garlands the rope.
Witnesses wait to see a soul damned,
Not by Death, but by the hands of man.

The scales of justice had not tilted his way,
Noose on the second and third vertebrae.
One last breath, the dregs last whine
Black bag over his head shuts out time.

With a prayer to the great whoever,
She finally pulled at the cold lever,
Killing a large part of herself,
While the other hangs, sans self.

The planks gave way to dark emptiness,
The rope shivered hard, finding rigidness.
Then death calmly swung around
till it stopped like a rod, dug in the ground.

This was her first, but more down the way,
'Coz the condemned are born everyday,
Hung, hands bound, legs tied with leather,
Noose tightens, another drops into the cellar.

Inspired by the book Hangwoman (Aarachar)
by K. R. Meera, translated from Malayalam by J. Devika