Tuesday, February 21, 2017

THE NEW AMERICA: BRING YOUR OWN DEATH

by George Salamon


"As states have faced  challenges to carrying out executions by lethal injections, various work-arounds and alternatives have been proposed . . . Arizona may have come up with the most original concept yet: an invitation for lawyers to help kill their own clients. With drugs that can be used for lethal injections in short supply, the Arizona department of corrections' latest execution protocol states that attorneys for death row inmates are welcome to bring their own." The Guardian, February 15, 2017


No more irresolution
For those awaiting execution.
It's rugged individualism to the end
Thanks to Arizona's new godsend.
Where the condemned's lawyer
Is appointed his destroyer.
Once witness and fellow weeper,
He may play grim reaper.
We shuddered once to that final yelp,
To be marketed as an existential act
Of self-help.


George Salamon is still trying to watch the American scene sixty-nine years after his arrival from Europe.  He does it now from St. Louis, MO.