Perhaps Bennie Demps passed some of his last days on Death Row reading poetry. If he did, Dylan Thomas was surely among the poets he read. For Demps did as Thomas commanded.
Lethal injection is supposed to be a kindly process for the condemned.
It is supposed to be a sanitized death, so those offended by what the state does will be less offended. And it is supposed to go off like Mussolini's trains, on schedule. It was none of these things. The execution was 30 minutes late. When Demps was given a chance to speak, he declared that he had been butchered.