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.

THERE WAS A FACE

by j.lewis

Image source: ACLU Capital Punishment Project

Former Eagle Scout set to be executed for Alabama killing

—Fox News, December 7, 2016

two and twenty years ago
one life went out
with details that are
of course, on record

the extinguisher
one score and two years later
after all appeals have failed
sits on the infamous row
while a state plays
mother may i with scotus
anxious to finally do
unto him what he did
unto another

i am not from alabama
cannot even tell you
where i was that day
when one life and some
unimportant sum of money
were taken in huntsville
video rolling, rolling

today i saw his face
where else but on facebook
an absolutely ordinary face
and when i asked google
for details, for explanation
there was the face again
over a caption from fox
that called him
a former eagle scout

and i wondered
how does one become
a former eagle scout
is there a ceremony
a court of dishonor
that strips away
all merit, all honor
as if to say
we never knew you

and would that hurt
any less than dying
or would the former scout
even care at this point
knowing how determined
a certain state can be
when they want to be sure
you remain forever unable
to reclaim that eagle

Editor’s Postscript: Ronald Smith was executed on December 8, 2016. See “Alabama's cruel and unusual execution of Ronald Smith” —Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2016

j.lewis is an internationally published poet, musician, and nurse practitioner. His poems have appeared online and in print in numerous journals from California to Nigeria to the UK. a clear day in october, his first collection of poetry and photography was published in June 2016. A chapbook is forthcoming from Praxis Magazine in early 2017.

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL

by Gil Hoy



A divided Supreme Court on Monday turned aside claims by death-row inmates that a drug to be used in their executions would lead to an unconstitutional level of suffering, a narrow but unequivocal ruling that made clear that states have leeway in carrying out the death penalty. —Wshington Post, June 29, 2015

"I would ask ... a more basic question:whether the death penalty violates the Constitution."--Justice Stephen Breyer in his dissent

Are some men
born evil,

and others
born good?

As some men
have brown eyes,

and others
have blue?

As some
are born weak,

and others
born strong?


Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer, who first studied poetry at Boston University while receiving a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science. Gil started writing his own poetry last year. Since then, his poems have been published most recently in The Potomac, The New Verse News, The Antarctica Journal, Third Wednesday, and To Hold A Moment Still, Harbinger Asylum’s 2014 Holidays Anthology.

THE METHOD DOESN'T MATTER

by Kristina Cerise

One in three people say that if lethal injections are no longer viable — because of drug shortages or other problems — executions should be stopped altogether, according to the survey of 800 adults by Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies for NBC News. But many others are open to more primitive methods of putting prisoners to death: 20 percent for the gas chamber, 18 percent for the electric chair, 12 percent for firing squad and 8 percent for hanging.        --NBC News, May 14, 2014

The thirst for death
will not be sated

The clinical tidiness
of a needle
administered by a gloved hand
is not necessary
to keep the conscience clean

They are comfortable
with the mess of
murder

Gas ‘em
Fry ‘em
Shoot ‘em
Hang ‘em

Lead pipe or candlestick
it doesn't really matter

The calls for death
are louder than the calls
for decency

For every one that hesitates
two salivate


Kristina Cerise is a Seattle writer committed to searching for meaning in the madness. 

DEAD MAN WALKING

by Jeff Burt

Source: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

The last lynching
will not occur in redneck backwoods,
will not occur in buckthorn bramble swamp,
will not occur from revenge in the hood
under the laughter of protection
and the protection of laughter,
for this is the world we wanted
and this is the world we get:

the last man lynched
will be jailed by judiciousness,
condemned by the passport of poverty
to regions the rich will never tour,
hung by a jury,
stung, doped, chemically fried,
taken from circulation
like a ragged dollar bill.


Jeff Burt works in manufacturing.  He has work in Rhino, Windfall, Thrice Fiction, and forthcoming in Mobius, Storm Cellar, and Star 82 Review.

AN UNJUST LAW

by Gil Hoy

The drawn-out execution of Dennis McGuire has prompted many to question lethal injection in Ohio. McGuire's execution took about 25 minutes; a state expert said he expected it to happen in a matter of minutes. -- The Plain Dealer, January 26, 2014.

Can’t get Ohio out of my
head, damn.

Took 26 minutes to kill
him, some new-fangled
poison not the usual,
a half-baked horror show.

Sour drugs flowed through
blue veins, the prisoner
strapped to a gurney gasped
vacant eyes staring,

rattling,
nose snorting,
choking almost guttural--
like food stuck in your
windpipe
on and on, convulsions.

By all accounts, he was
a horrible savage man

25 years ago,
raped, tortured and killed
a young woman with child,

just married, still to live
and be enjoyed.

So nothing cruel or unusual
here, an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth,
Lex talionis, as prophesied.

But this death more
like a Macabre blunder
at a public square picnic
hangin’ from days old,
when the man’s head
in the too-tight hemp noose
might come clean off,

Minute after lingering
minutes, following terrible
60 second minutes
Strangling from the inside,
a mammal gasps for breath.

Heard that his blood in the
crowd had to cover their ears
and wipe their tears from
soaked ashen faces,
I say listen up, after what he did.

If you agree, show the
video play-back to your son,
so he can see what we do,
though slow suffocation
is not for the squeamish,
something to Hide?

Murder: premeditation
and unlawful killing,
the state does you one better,
premeditation and ceremony,
and who are we
to tell the state what to do,
sounds AOK to me.

Much ado about nothing.
Throw to hungry lions
crush ‘em with fat elephants,
devoured by wild sweaty-toothed beasts
does the trick
tear them apart by Galloping horses,
burn him like an over-cooked
headless turkey for your Thanksgiving roast,
crucifixion, decapitation, boil until cooked.

Firing squad? Pass the loaded Gun
please, stoning? A duplicitous
contest to see who casts the first
stone. Disembowelment, OK,
dismemberment, tie him to a
cannon and set the charge, so cool

your mouth just drips with blood
like a stale English Pudding,
gas, hangings, electric chair,
That covers it.

But somewhere I read and
believed to the marrow, now
shaking terrified: turn to him
the other cheek also, or we
will all be Toothless and Blind.

No one’s listening or caring
anymore,

Blood red Hearts disgorged on a
winding cobblestone trail that leads
to a distant dream
That our eyes don’t hear anymore
and that tastes forgotten anyway.


Gil Hoy is a trial lawyer in Boston, and grew up in Brookline, MA. He received a B.A in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. degree in Government from Georgetown University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Gil is an elected member of the Brookline Democratic Town Committee, and served as a Brookline Selectman, the Town's highest elected office, for 12 years. Gil is married, with three children, and lives in Brookline, MA.

TO PISS WHEN YOU CAN'T WHISTLE

by Kim Doyle

"A Warden Says No to the Death Penalty" --The Story, APM, November 29, 2012

The minatory prayers, the hoarse clanging bells,
the procession westward from Newgate to Tyburn.
To sit in the cart facing the rising sun,
the noose around your neck, not the only one.

The dismal ditty, Psalm 51 on your lips -
to recite at the hands of Jack Ketch.
The frolicking crowds dance at Paddington Fair,
the gaggler, the topping cove, the roper was there.

To mount the three-legged mare,
to ride the horse foaled by an acorn -
the morning drop, the nubbing cheat,
the rough wool of the winding sheet.

Capital Punishment in its worm eaten coat,
the old fashioned, drop dead, hearty choke.


Kim Doyle points out that the United States still executes - joining in with fellow third world countries.