Month: January 2019

For a while it was the best show in town
intrigue, betrayal, double-cross and murder.
Hollywood couldn’t have scripted such a tail –
would have been condemned as too contrived –
too unbelievable
nine appearances, reviews, enquiries and appeals
tried and convicted
then re tried and convicted
if capital punishment was still statute
he would have hung, twice.

Doubt never doubted the new evidence –
fabrication
and falsehood
released – immediately
and a commission of enquiry ordered.
The chairman was hanging judge from days distant
appointed
to separate truth and lies, error and malfeasance.
The order had been reversed, the chief investigator grilled,
interrogation and prevarication
tempers strained then snarling
the judge said
“ Mr Hutton are you thick?
Thick, your honour ?
– stupid, slow, challenged, unintelligent
ah, ah, ah
because either you’re thick, or you’re lying
I prefer to think that you were thick.”

It was a select course
hard to get into and
harder to get out of –
sort of academic Hotel California
but without the frisson, adventure ….. and cocaine.
A quartet of professors rotated
incessantly teaching, setting assignments, grading –
critique and criticism.
Occasionally a guest lecturer stirred the homogeneity
lightening the tedium – or increasing.

Even on a warm spring day he arrived in topcoat
and three-piece suit.
He was accompanied by a briefcase
which remained unopened
waved aside fulsome introductions with
“ litigation is the cloaca of law
where it goes when all other processes are finished –
excreta ” to the arrayed blank faces.

His address was that of a barrister to a jury
a blend of pathos, humour, sarcasm, fact and emotion
ending with
“ to some the coastline of New Zealand begins atop the highest peak
to others at the outer edge of the 200 mile exclusive economic zone,”
for $500 an hour I’m prepared either argue case.

Then collecting briefcase and coat
he was gone,
without pause or farewell.

The difference between high school sport and grade cricket –
they were men,
with muscles and moustaches and
that wasn’t a ball,
it was a missile –
coming at ME.
Helmets – brand-new, no one used them then.
“ PUSSIES … scared of a bit of leather ?”
Jeff asked his old man,
who’d been a halfway decent cricketer himself back in the day,
back before helmets even thought of.
“ Do you wear a box?
YEAH,
well, if you’re protecting your balls, why not your brains?”