On the Subject of Execution.

For reasons you don't need to know, some friends and myself hold irregularly regular silent movie and poetry evenings. This is a little bit Brighton, but not as cravat as you might think. Last night we watched The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). The original print of this superb film was lost until a copy was found in a mental institution in Oslo. (I'm not making this up) in 1981. It really is a good film, Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan reputedly gives one of the greatest performances in cinema. She certainly achieves a level of emotion on screen that suggests she can see someone solemnly sawing kittens in half just off camera. 


Joan of Arc we decided was a subject liable to generate too cheesy a style, so the poetry theme was "execution". Now, previously on these evenings the standard had been admirably high and my light hearted affairs had been sandwiched among meaty, thoughtful, evocative pieces, leaving me feeling trivial and an emotional lightweight.  This time, with a heavy film and a serious subject I thought it time to change tack. As did everyone else, as it happens. Hence, after a few haiku and a couple of amusing limericks and before a short, amusing one man play and a mime - yes mime - I read the following:

On The Subject Of Execution

What do you say to the man with the axe, the gun, the knife, the switch?

What song do you sing on your last of days?

How did you, in all truth, think it would end?

Loved ones’ faces and blood slowing painlessly in your veins?

Sleeping quietly down the tunnels of night?

Battle, perhaps?

Finished by the shot you never heard.

Did you think you’d be ready?

For Christ’s sake look at the world:

Accidents, crashes, tears, amputations,

The drownings, blind, thrashing terrors,

Bleeding in the wreckage with no help coming.

Look at it,

And open your eyes to the rotting, hobbling end of life,

The disease, the cancer,

The organ failing loneliness of the hospital bed.

All these agonies were yours.

This was your future,

These were your deaths

Wrapped and packaged and waiting for you.

So what do you say to the axe man, the hangman, the firing squad?

Whatever it was you did; that something, that nothing which led to this,

You sing a song of thanks and shake their hand,

For in all this world of Hell, misery and pain,

There are few, kinder deaths than theirs.

I was partially saved a little later by someone kindly reading an even more depressing poem, but the ripple of sympathetic applause after a momentary delay will live with me.

Incidentally, if you do see the film (and you should, you'll be the better for it) and if you're familiar with Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares To You" it's not too much of a leap to guess this was where she inspired the video from.

                                                                                                                      AA