scarecrow poetics/essays

In the middle of the night
Every night around 3, or 4 a.m.
Just before my eyes snap open and
I struggle out of bed to take my old man’s piss

I have this vision
A simple vision
Of an empty hangman’s noose

Gracefully I step up to the executioner’s platform
Slip my head in
Feel the cord tighten ever so slightly around my neck

What’s to come requires no explanation

But I can’t quite figure out what the vision means:

Whether it’s just my chronic clinical depression
rearing its ugly head
Or if it’s supposed to represent you, my wife
and the kids sleeping peacefully in the next room

Or that one day I’m going to find myself on the gallows after I lose my grip once and for all and commit
bloody mayhem

Or maybe the noose is nothing but (right, nothing but!)
A symbol of our existential dilemma down here on earth

And so I lie there, stymied
Waiting breathlessly

For some explanation to emerge out of the blackness

It never does
And I’ve lost all hope that it ever will

Then I find my legs
Stumble to the jake
Sit on the fucking thing like a woman

And let go

Back in the bedroom
The iridescent digits on the nightstand clock say
Two, or three hours
Before I have to get up again
And slip my neck
Into the noose
Of another day.

Mark SaFranko's stories have appeared in dozens of magazines and journals internationally, including the renowned Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and The Savage Kick. He was cited in Best American Mystery Stories 2000 and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2005 he won the Frank O'Connor award. Mister SaFranko is also a playwright. The Bitch-Goddess was selected Best Play of the Village Gate One-Act Festival in New York in 1992. An evening of his one-acts which included The Bitch-Goddess recently made its European debut at the Derry Playhouse in Northern Ireland. The production then moved south to the Cork Arts Theatre to strong reviews.

Another play, The Promise, was produced at the Millenium Forum in Derry in June, 2003. Other plays have also been seen at such New York venues as the Samuel Beckett Theater, Belmont Italian American Playhouse, the Harold Clurman Theater, the Creative Place Theater, Wings Theater, the Madison Avenue Theater, and the Riant Theater.As an actor he has appeared in several independent films, including A Better Place, Shoot George, and The Road From Erebus.His novels are Hopler's Statement and The Favor, both available through all the dotcoms. His novel, Hating Olivia, is published by Murder Slim Press. The sequel to Hating Olivia, entitled Lounge Lizard, will be published soon.