“I would bring back waterboarding and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” — Donald Trump
“We thank You and praise You for a bold man, a strong man, and an obedient man.” — Rev. Kenneth Copeland, praying with Donald Trump
Executions at dawn; executions at noon;
firing squads at dusk; afternoon burnings
in town squares; executions of people
already lying in their graves; executions
in rain and mud; lynchings on Sundays
with picnic prepared; sacrifices at cliffside
with one loop of the living victim’s intestine
tied to a tree limb before the push; hangings
with offspring watching; hangings with parents
watching; blond girl tied on hilltop
frequented by carnivores; flayings with
carding combs until praying stops;
bricked into darkness of some other’s
tomb; hacked in lines like sugarcane
harvest; toppled into rocky shafts; tipped
into volcanoes; lowered slowly into
circling sharks; lowered into boiling oil;
closed away inside an iron bull soon to
glow red; set up for target practice
to receive stones, arrows, spears, bullets,
anti-aircraft gun fire; chainsaws;
dragged at the end of a chain; and how much
must be absent from such a list, given
the flashing cinema of human history,
in which pain and the engine of death
are given a serene nod to commence
by those momentarily spared? Those
content to identify strangers, and odd ones,
and hungry ones, as deserving of
subtraction from love — even as they require
their own gods
to smile upon such practice.
