The executioner trades his axe for the noose,
sizing necks to break,
and there is no hood,
just a smile twisted to the nearest camera,
while dark humor oozes out beneath the scaffold
where comedians wait their fate,
or learn how the noose becomes a necktie
when worn correctly,
and the leader pronounces that death is life,
as silence sings louder than dissent,
the executioner’s gallows repurposed as a stage
where artists paint with blood they’re told
is merely red ink,
merely policy,
merely the natural evolution of democracy’s
rope against dissident throats,
constricting an airway of voice,
so that
breathing through the necktie
sections thought from action,
word from meaning,
the executioner now editor,
now curator,
now teacher
showing citizens how to place their necks just so,
how to call the trap door a kind of rising.

 

21/9/2025