Harry Olaf knew it all right
It would be here
And thought it over carefully.
Looked at the place.
Measured and estimated.
He went there a couple of times
And put them in the right shape.
He stands on the bridge with a watch in his hand
He knew exactly the time
How long it would take.
He measured the strength of his wire
And knew it well enough.
And the right amount of wire
Harry Olaf knew, not to the inch, but to the millimetre.
And at last the loop
Of saw-wire, supported on its own loop.
All Harry Olaf counted and examined.
When the day came, he would jump from the bridge
With a saw thread around his neck
It would cut off his head like a penny bun
Or if he didn’t
He’d be hanged by a rope
Or if not to the gallows
The wires would hit the wire
And fry Harry Olaf like a harpoon
But if he didn’t cook him up like a fish in a barrel
He’d be hit by the express train.
That morning, then.
Harry Olaf walked to the bridge over the railway
He walked through the oak grove
Across the footbridge over the highway
Walked from the rapids, past McDonald’s
With a sawbuck in his pocket.
On the bridge, over the railway,
Harry Olaf stood on the railing,
With a wire around his neck, whispering
Waiting for the northern train.
No train was heard, no conductor shook.
Harry Olaf looked at the time on his cell phone
Death already fifteen minutes late
And the news told the cause
There was a trainmen’s strike.
Harry Olaf, with care, came down from the rail
He put his saw thread in his pocket
He walked back, past McDonald’s
Across the rushing rapids
Across the roaring rush
The trucking highway
Beneath the solid oaks.
Ate the life of a man
I should have known it:
Fuck this too,
But next time, better luck.
