What of the executioner;
Hooded dragons
Since the dawn of man?
What of their blackened deeds,
And indifferent hearts;
Their greatest sins
Which by order or decree,
They deny the direction of their souls,
And bear the yoke of ugliness,
Without spoken question.

From where does the slaughterer emerge?
Is he borne to this murderous role,
Or randomly chosen:
A victim of his own rotting luck,
To bear the conscience of kings,
While he paves his own path to hell?

Surely, the executioner
Must not eternally bear the brand
Of hooded knight,
Which before the screaming mob,
Parlays sword, or blade,
Bullet, rope, or fire
Into ignominious end,
Spilling blood for raging crowd,
And for now
Quelling wrath:
But what of him
Who no fury bore,
And what comes
When his head is laid to pillow,
But an emptiness,
Which only the executioner knows.

The silver salver bears the heads
Of guilty and innocence alike,
But to the executioner,
They are but beasts,
And the order righteous or cruel,
And he, the assassin, is victim,
As he dons his blackened hood
And wonders,
What ghastly sin of ancestors
Has left him here,
For the executioner sleeps alone,
And no pardon does the confessor bring,
And his, by no deliberate sin,
are the darkest of blighted nights.