In every culture, there comes a moment when the living must pause and give words to the silence left behind by the dead. Tradition compels us to remember, even when memory is bitter, and to mark a passing with the dignity of ceremony. An elegy, in its most familiar form, is a lament: a ritual of speech that acknowledges loss, frames a life, and offers shape to the void a death leaves in its wake.
The name of the recently deceased is not relevant; it is a repeated lament for all his kind. They come and go, leaving the world worse than they found it. What follows is the elegy of a man whose death shook his brief time. His was a voice known widely, a figure who commanded attention and stirred great passions. Whatever judgment posterity may lay upon him, his absence left a vacancy impossible to ignore. The bullet that cut him down ended more than a single life—it stilled a vile presence that had thundered through public squares, private halls, and the imaginations of many who followed him.
When given, this elegy was spoken not in praise, but in simple witness.
We gather here in solemn witness,
for death demands attendance,
and custom bids us mark the passing of one who shaped our age.
So let us, for a moment, borrow the dignity of ceremony.
Let us stand in the shadow of marble and stone,
and pretend—if only to give this day its order—
that the man before us once bore a name worth speaking aloud.
He was a young voice, bright and burning,
who might have been a builder had he chosen truth.
But truth was a burden too heavy for him,
and so he clothed himself in scripture—
not the living word, but the twisted shard,
cherry-picked fragments sharpened into a daggers.
He preached with thunder, called himself a shepherd,
and the ignorant followed, duped by verses he mutilated into slogans.
He stirred the zeal of boys and girls scarcely grown,
students just torn from the shelter of their families,
and he filled their ears not with wisdom,
but with poison dressed as prophecy.
When violence rose, it was violence of his planting.
He had sown the field with rage,
yet when the harvest came, he washed his hands with sanctimony,
crying that the blood was not his.
He would thunder: “These are extremists, not mine!”
while beneath his robe the stains spread deeper,
and the pious mask slipped only in the dark.
For in the dark, another gospel ruled him—
a gospel of appetite.
He sexualized the impressionable he called disciples,
plucking the tender faith of youth
and twisting it into his private indulgence.
He preyed upon them without regard to their bodies’ shape,
seeking conquest more than company.
And though he wrapped himself in family values by day,
by night he bought the silence of men—
contracts inked with shame, hush-money smeared over wounds,
his lust fenced by law and silver.
Not content with the college halls,
he prowled the circles of the broken:
the meetings of the desperate in recovery,
the trembling who sought redemption.
From their weakness he recruited his apostles,
seeking not their healing, but their use.
He offered them a counterfeit resurrection,
a crown of loyalty bought at the cost of their souls.
This was the man who called himself a prophet.
This was the man whose tongue never knew rest,
whose brand fattened on division,
whose business thrived on fire.
And when at last the patriot’s bullet struck him down,
it did not silence a saint,
but extinguished a pyre that had burned too long and too bright,
consuming all it touched.
Let us speak plainly, then,
for ceremony has had its due.
He was not a martyr. He was not a prophet.
He was a merchant of lies,
a forger of scripture,
a predator cloaked in hymns.
He was rot dressed in a suit,
a wolf who not only wore sheep’s clothing,
but stitched the fleece from the very lambs he devoured.
And so let his memory stand not as a comfort,
but as a warning.
We shall not enshrine him.
We shall not sanctify him.
We carve his name in stone only to remember the stench of it.
Let every young voice who might rise after him know:
charisma is not virtue, thunder is not truth,
and those who claim holiness while dealing in shadows
will meet the same swift end.
So let this be the last word spoken over him:
He sought to brand himself immortal,
and he has found eternity only in contempt.
Here lies the deceiver,
and may the worms feast on him quickly,
lest the earth itself spit him back.
