Posted in Chutzpah

Your Call

Posted on by tq1695

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.”

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.