#punish

special thanks to Martha Sharpe and everyone at Anansi; to Mandy Barber, for the use of her stunning visual art; to Karen Mac Cormack, for her advice during the early stages of this project; and to David Bromige (weaver of radhats), for his enthusiasm which encouraged me to develop this piece into a book-length poem. ↗

— Darren Wershler-Henry

#cycle-of-defeat #gram-parsons #metalhead #parasite #punishment

As an American I wanted to explore... why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we're too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime? ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#american #because #believe #best #best way

When I was in seventh grade my mom caught me smoking cigarettes and punished me by making me smoke the entire carton. All it did was piss me off because I was out of cigarettes. ↗

— Pink

#caught #cigarettes #did #entire #grade

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men. ↗

— Plato

#live #men #part #punishment #refuse

Fantastic tyrant of the amorous heart. How hard thy yoke, how cruel thy dart. Those escape your anger who refuse your sway, and those are punished most, who most obey. ↗

— Matthew Prior

#anger #cruel #dart #escape #fantastic

The Resistance is a moral certainty, not a poetic one. The true poet never uses words in order to punish someone. His judgment belongs to a creative order; it is not formulated as a prophetic scripture. ↗

— Salvatore Quasimodo

#certainty #creative #formulated #his #judgment

We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners. ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#bourbon #churches #corporal #could #country

If life is a punishment, one should wish for an end; if life is a test, one should wish it to be short. ↗

— Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

#life #paul-and-virginie #paul-et-virginie #pessimism #pessimistic

The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office. ↗

— Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

#fact #genius #impeachment #lay #man

I stood behind the man’s chair, my blade at his throat. “Why do you do it?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer. “Kill people, and blow up buildings, and sell drugs?” It was what they all did. Committed crimes. That was why I killed them. “You’re a criminal, a terrorist, a danger. And I have been asked to take you out.” I told him. I was legend now, yet he asked the same question all the others did. “What is your name?” My sensitive ears tuned out the slit as my sword cut his neck. I walked around the chair to see his face. I watched as his eyes–slowly at first–changed from blue to milky white. His skin went pale. And as I heard him take his last breath, I ducked in so my lips hovered at his ear, and whispered, “My name, is Sharden. ↗

— Alysha Speer

#body-of-blades #crime #kill #punishment #sharden