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“I am memorializing
the just-barely-adults
(mostly boys, mostly less privileged)
who have died fighting wars that
for the most part
were not their own...
the families
who have had to go on without them...
those who gave their life to this country
by standing for our freedoms in non-wars--struggles--
struggles about race, religion,
gender, sexual orientation,
contraception and abortion rights,
the environment, eradication of global disease and world hunger,
the right to collectively bargain and unionize...
who paid the ultimate price
through their civil disobedience, protest, collective action,
or just by living in a way that was so challenging to others
that they were executed for it...
the ones
from whom we stole this land
and those whose lives we stole
to build it...
those who were just trying
to go to school, pray, shop, watch a movie, be,
when they were gunned down in a country
that loves its guns
far more than its people...
those who were killed for
driving while black,
walking while black,
talking while black,
sleeping while black.

On Decoration Day we are decorated
with their blood
and their memory”
― Shellen Lubin

“I'll have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker. There's tens o'thousands dead on your account.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fire & Blood

“When the business environment is competitive, it's often strategy and execution that makes the difference between winners and losers.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Like water, life is precious, but most people, through their lack of empathy, prefer to waste it.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“The most trivial things create the most critical complications in any execution.”
― Harjeet Khanduja, How Leaders Decide: Tackling Biases and Risks in Decision Making

“I'll do it later", is where you burry your dreams”
― Mac Duke The Strategist

“What entertainment value is there in executions if not for the occasional surprise? Why does the public attend? For the unexpected! A condemned man who flails about, or launches into a final fiery tirade. But times are changing, indeed they are...”
― Fabien Vehlmann, Isle of 100,000 Graves

“As pragmatic as Kitan was in his daily means of execution, he had an inner drive that was starry-eyed and childlike.”
― Nick Oliveri, The Conjurer

“Idly, I wonder what sort of execution Cardan might order. Maybe he'd strap me to some rocks and let the sea do the work. Nicasia would like that. If he's not in the mood, though, there's always beheading, hanging, exsanguination, drawn and quartered, fed whole to a riding toad...”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“They left two nights later. They had each a passable saddle-horse and a rifle and blanket and they had a mule that carried provisions of dried corn and beef and dates. They rode up into the dripping hills and in the first light Brown raised the rifle and shot the boy through the back of the head. The horse lurched forward and the boy toppled backward, the entire foreplate of his skull gone and the brains exposed. Brown halted his mount and got down and retrieved the sack of coins and took the boy’s knife and took his rifle and his powderflask and his coat and he cut the ears from the boy’s head and strung them onto his scapular and then he mounted up and rode on. The packmule followed and after a while so did the horse the boy had been riding.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“A great idea (or strategy) is often made to seem to be a bad idea (or strategy) by bad execution â€� or impatience.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“A death-warrant requires a royal signature. And I signed my own. And if your Great and Virgin Queen should wonder why I signed it, you are to tell her this: There is more living in a death that is embraced than in a life that is avoided across three-score years and ten. And I embrace it-thus!”
― Robert Bolt, Vivat! Vivat Regina!

“Edgar Rawls knows the case for the world is made anew every single day, that each new dawn brings a relitigation of man’s first disobedience and a shot at one more stay of execution.”
― Alex Paknadel, Redfork

“The Final Word by Stewart Stafford

On the wall of a prominent jacks,
Came anonymous, scurrilous attacks,
Innuendo and defamatory jibes,
Scrawled by cowardly scribes,
Dared the executioner’s axe.

And whoever wrote the indecent graffiti,
Would never say it to the King in a meeting,
He’d cry: ‘Off with their heads,�
Then sleep safely in bed,
Having the final word takes some beating.

And as they walked to an undignified death,
No sarcastic words came from their breath,
They were up for the chop,
On the executioner’s block,
And would plead it was all for a bet.

So if you’ve ill words planned,
Remember to keep them in hand,
Or the butt of your jokes,
Becomes your executioner’s host,
And that’s the end of your brand.

© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Alex heard a stirring in the Hall. Brian had arrived. They cleared a path for him, saluting with mighty cheers as their leader made his way to the stage up front. Alex met him there.
Brian looked good. His eyes were alert and alive, soaking in these final sights before the end. Alex could tell there had been no tears. At this deeply emotional moment, Alex felt an urge to hug his friend, or at least shake his hand, but human touch was anathema. He saluted.
“I’m glad you made it,� Alex said.
“You didn’t think I’d change my mind, did you?� Brian replied.
“Of course not. I knew you’d be here. You’re even early.�
“I think it’s best to arrive early for one’s execution, don’t you?”
― Rich Coffeen, The Discipling Of Mytra

“The execution of an idea creates change and change contributes to the evolution process.”
― Sukant Ratnakar, Quantraz

“Success can't exist unless you have execution. Your work should show progress.”
― Troy Sandidge, Strategize Up: The Simplified Blueprint To Scaling Your Business

“Had the whole human race, in the circles of some immense Colosseum gathered together to see Mrs. Cobbald executed it is certain that she would never have blinked an eyelid, or lapsed one hair's breadth from her fortitude.”
― John Cowper Powys, Weymouth Sands

“An accurate picture of the odds is important when you’re choosing a path. But once you’ve already made your choice, then you should switch into irrational optimism for the execution phase.”
― Annie Duke, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices

“I looked up at the noose, and it looked to me as the praying hands of God. I was tired of lies and broken promises, and weary of the world...”
― Lioness DeWinter

“I hold no illusion of why I'm here. I know what's in store for me. I know that I am to die. Timothy and I have spoken of it often in the past couple of years, and I must willingly submit to what I was meant to do, the role I was literally born to play. Now, I understand why I have always been drawn to the Bible, although it seems so contrary to my true nature...

My surname is an omen, as well: St. John. As a youth, a new gypsy boy, I had always mocked it. As a dynamic young preacher, I embraced it. Now, as I lay here, waiting for the end, I accept it for the omen that it is.”
― Lioness DeWinter, Southern Cross

“...But I am the most horrified at the slim young man who is upon his knees, clad in the same white trousers as I, his long, black hair framing his face like soft, shining curtains as he rests his head on his clasped, shackled hands and prays.

"Brian," I sob, my anguish causing my voice to break. "I don't want you in this place..."

He raises his head and pulls me down beside him. His sightless eyes seem to look straight into mine.

"You aren't alone anymore, Obadiah," he says gently. I weep, and take him back against me the best that I can, with my shackled wrists, and we rest against one another...two vessels ready for the last journey.

"I couldn't let you go without me, 'Baddy," he says softly. "I'd never find a love like yours again, even if I lived for a million years! There is only one you. When a person is gifted with a love like this, it should be defended at all costs..."

I weep then, for real...for this precious child, who will pay the ultimate price for loving me...how he must love me, indeed...”
― Lioness DeWinter, Southern Cross

“The clerestories were soft with evening light. Through them, to the east, I saw something invisible from the road: a short gibbet. From it a bundle dangled, turning a little. A crow picked at it. At first I thought nothing because I could think nothing. Then I thought, So that’s what smells.”
― Betsy James, Listening at the Gate

“It gives me no pleasure to do this,â€� said Sharrowkyn. ‘You are nothing to me, simply a rabid dog that needs to be put down.”
― Graham McNeill, Angel Exterminatus

“Even as she faced execution, Marie Antoinette's will to control her image, to manage it through her clothing, had not left her.”
― Caroline Weber, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

“The Damned Axe by Stewart Stafford

The axe decapitates a head,
Society's ills get quickly shed,
Can we trust what we don't see?
The masked executioner's decree.

A death by hacks couldn't be worse,
Carnifex of the jingling cutpurse,
Blood is spilt to slake the thirst,
In the name of God, the law comes first.

A pantomime of barbarity,
To lose one's head so publicly,
And then be held up mockingly,
The crowd disperses hastily.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Brahma is creativity, Vishnu is execution, Shiva is resilience. Imbibe these three for utmost excellence.”
― Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma, Smiling Brahma

“But it's a tough thing, you see. It's so difficult being a merciful Queen.”
― Sara Ellie MacKenzie, Casting Shadows

“What had caused my sudden change of heart?

Then, I realized that I was not just mourning her.

There was a shift, a change, and it was all that Klenard needed. With no one to contest me, a new era was born. The kingdom can grow.

It was hope and I was frightened by it.”
― Sara Ellie MacKenzie, The Circle is Broken

“One noble died of treason, but there was always another who would continue plotting. Treason remains on the statute book, enshrined in law today, though not an oft used law. When we think of treason and tyrannical monarchs, Henry VIII is usually pretty high on the list. He redefined treason to be what he wanted it to be and, as a result, opened the doors to multitudes of treason trials and the depletion of the English nobility.”
― Helene Harrison, Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block