A SIMPLE MACHINE
The noose that was used to hang John Brown is allegedly in the permanent collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Frayed and wild threads
from where the knife tore
the rope from the gallows.
*
Now coiled outward
loop by loop,
then around the slip, tied
to its inevitable end.
Simple machine:
knot and gravity.
A length too short
for the boots kicking to find
their way back to earth.
*
What a curious gesture
of keeping.
This noose is tagged,
catalogued, and shelved
in climate-controlled
suspension of time.
*
Who saved it?
Carried it away
to the future?
Was it to be a warning
of “vengeance
against anyone
who would challenge
slavery?”
Families broken apart
and sold
down to New Orleans,
to the very pit
for fear
that John Brown
was contagious.
Or was it to be
a call to action?
A bell for freedom, say:
“In this very noose,
the Great Prophet
died for abolition.
Gabriel’s trumpet calls
for sacrifice
from sacrifice.”
*
Complexity at the end
of a length of rope,
a noose
its meaning dangles
in time—
this pendulum swings
from violence
to violence.
*
I, John Brown, am now
quite certain that the crimes
of this guilty land
will never be purged away
but with blood.
*
This machine is always
ready for its labor.
Open-mouthed
waiting for the neck
that the crowd pushes up
those slapdash stairs,
then squared up
on the trick floor
for everyone to see,
to applaud what happens—
for everyone to be
satisfied
of some injury.
*
You may dispose
of me
very easily,—
I am nearly disposed
by now: but this question
is still to be settled—
*
In the morgue
of our troubled histories—
this length of rope
and its simple knot—
fulcrum of gravity
and intent—
this simple machine
still tied to fit.
Eric W. Schramm lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and works for the University of Michigan. His poems have appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Great Lakes Review, Passenger Journal, Gargoyle, The Literary Review, The Potomac, and The Louisville Review, among others.
Featured image in this post is, “Kennedy Farmy” by Acroterion, licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. The Kennedy Farm served as John Brown’s headquarters during his 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
