I’D RATHER SHOOT
Why was the pyre always
placed in the main city square?
The gallows along the main road?
Death should be seen, feared,
should wave its accusing finger at you
like a swaying corpse in the wind.
To warn, to chasten or silence,
to subdue and put a black bandage
on your eyes.
To hush your lips
with its index finger.
This was and will be practiced
by dictators for political reasons.
But you can never, even if given two lives,
understand those voyeurs and sadists
(some even relatives to the victim)
who, sitting in the first row, watch
the execution of the condemned.
You’d rather be in a firing squad,
where only one of five
shoots a real bullet.
Translated into English: Zoran Ančevski