Poems from the the Pen Poems from Death Row

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WHAT IS MURDER?

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The knowing and intentional killing

of another human being!

WHAT IS THE DEATH PENALTY?

The knowing and intentional killing

of another human being!

To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment

incomparably worse

than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more

terrible than murder by brigands.

-Fyodor Dostoyevski, The Idiot (1868)

They tried to kill me in the womb

because of my blackness
but they did not succeed

Nor could they kill me during the Inquisition

the invasion of Afrika the Trans-Atlantic Passage

They could not kill me along with

Nat Turner

Gabriel Prosser

Denmark Vessey

Cinque

Martin

&
Malcolm

Nor could they kill me during the

Revolutions Insurrections Rebellions & Uprisings

They could not kill me on the ghetto streets

of amerikkka

Not even with their genocide

could they kill me

As i remember my brothers & sisters

Panthers

MOVE

&

all the others who

have gone before me

With all their attempts they

could not

kill me

then . .

.
. . . so they gave me

the death

penalty

instead.

by Ajamu M. Nassor, #4168 ( (greg resnover)

P.O. Box 41, Death Row Michigan City, IN 46360 Executed December 8, 1994

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