IN THE OLD DAYS

the executioners wore hoods
in the days of hangings when
the public was invited to watch
the spectacle

the man who drops the pellet
is faceless, as is the executioner
who pulls the lever

desserters are blindfolded
when facing the firing squad
and in Utah its optional

they offered Lorca
a blindfold too
but he chose to look them
in the eye
as the bullets tore into
his chest
the day the dirt turned red
in Spain.

A. D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet and writer. He is the author of over fifty books, including North Beach Poems, North Beach Revisited, and This Land Is Not My Land, which won a 2006 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for excellence in literature. Drowning Like Li Po in a River of Red Wine: Selected Poems 1970-2010, and the just released San Francisco Poems.

He worked as an editor and writer for the San Francisco Art Commission from 1975 to 1980, during which time he produced the Second Coming 1980 Poets and Music Festival, honoring the late Josephine Miles and The Blues legend John Lee Hooker.

His work has appeared internationally in over 2000 literary magazines and anthologies. Winans is a member of PEN, and has served on the Board of Directors of various art organizations, including the now defunct Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers (COSMEP), The South of Market Cultural Center, and Friends of Services For the Arts.  He is currently serving on the advisory board of the San Francisco International Poetry Library. His archives are housed at Brown University.