Gerald Dillenbeck | + Follow Poet |
Prose Poetry | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

Fugitives of Justice

Thank god I finally was caught and cited
for doing something that I didn't do.

Just think how much worse I would feel
if I actually had done it,
as I have done so many unfeeling and thoughtless things
without being held accountable,
at least not by the judicial system.

I hope it all balances out
and at least I can face the cacophonous chaos
knowing of my innocence this dissonant time,
and discontinue triggering all my neglected guilts 
from other bad times,
sadly unforgiven spaces

Failing 
to read bedtime stories 
when they could have helped

Failing
to feel lifetime belonging narratives
when we could have healed

Failing 
to remember physical/spiritual touch 
naturally anticipates kindness
especially when unnaturally dispirited
irreligiously anxious hurts can be warmly healed
before coldly sealed.

I sometimes confuse reasonable yet distracted
undeliberated
unchosen human error
with deliberately choosing full-willed intent
to proactively and/or reactively harm
with victimizing owies,
trauma,
deepening paths toward future anxious risks of loss
where past anticipated opportunities for gain
once lived with love's lighter expectations.

And sometimes our retributive justice system
further fuels this confused miscommunication
when distracted 
irresponsible
irrational
irreligious
disengaged human error
feels like deliberate victimization
followed by high risk evasive dis-communication

far outweighing positive,
far less time and money invested,
opportunities to act
in a more socially acceptable spirit of cooperation
by exercising a basic Golden Rule orientation
to self-with-other governance.

When this happens, we evade credibility,
to too quickly embrace criminalizing responsibility,
perhaps due to our own overly-paranoid imaginations.

Communication 
in economic and political life 
is all about mis-communication sad and mad messages
and dis-communing bad messages
and sending out clear, consistent, glad messages.

Would any right mind,
would anyone fully insured,
totally sober
with a pen and paper in the car,
when asked by a witness to a car door ding,
"You're going to leave your number on their windshield aren't you?"

truly respond to that question with a "no"
and then drive calmly and slowly off,
leaving plenty of time for multiple communicating witnesses 
to get a plate number?

Maybe.
Maybe if he had looked at the cherry red truck
and could not see damage
that portended a visit for needed cosmetic repair.

Then again,
maybe the witness only asked this question
in the silence of her own imagination
or out loud but at a level of discreet volume
restricted so only she and those with her could hear.

After all,
you don't want to confront a crazy stranger
in a busy parking lot
who just might need some help
coping with his psychotic daughter
having an ill-timed manic episode,
laughing hysterically while blasting Ella Fitzgerald
singing "Love For Sale" across the medical center's parking lot
right?
Or wrong?
Or maybe something discommunicative in between?

Who are the victims here
and is there even one that could not have been made stronger
and healthier
with and by a peaceful spirit of cooperation?
Thereby making it even more likely
that next time,
next place,
next cherry red truck,
next victims of life's little transitional challenges
will feel relationships better,
rather than critically complex miscommunication
and neuro-dislogical 
discommuning trauma 
worse.

Copyright © Gerald Dillenbeck | Year Posted 2016

Please Login to post a comment