Best Jurors Poems
*NOTE: Jack and I wonder how many of you have heard of the Zona Shue case –
an American murder victim who had revenge in Virginia in the late 1800s.
Zona was killed by her husband, Edward Shue, who then took elaborate steps to
cover his crime. In an attempt to disguise Zona’s broken neck, Edward dressed her
corpse in a scarf and high necked dress, stuffed her coffin with pillows (to support
her vertebrae) and refused to allow even the doctor near the body.
However, Zona appeared to her mother and revealed the truth. Following
exhumation and an autopsy, Edward was found guilty of murder. It was the only
case in American history where information provided by a ghostly apparition was
admitted as evidence for consideration by jurors.
Jack and I are co-sponsoring a contest on ghost poems. Our co-write "A Ghost's
Testimony" below will give you an idea what we're seeking in entries.
"A Ghost's Testimony"
"She must have fallen down the stairs:
A tragic accident," he said.
"I've washed her body, laid her out -
Oh, Doctor Knapp, my Zona's dead!"
"No accident! Shue broke my neck.
Mother, please hear my ghostly plea.
Take him to court and make him pay;
It's murder in the first degree."
“I’ve dressed her in her high necked frock…
Thought pillows by her neck looked fine…
She’d want to wear this scarf,” he wept.
“But no one touch the corpse - she’s mine!”
"Thanks, Mom, for bringing this to court.
The autopsy was not done right!
With malice Shue cut my life short.
Exhume my body; shed some light."
“Her mother wants to see me hang,
But she can’t prove my guilt,” he fumed.
“She claims the body sheet turned red,
And wants to have my wife exhumed.”
"The judge disagreed and allowed
My spirit world testimony.
Shue, my killer, was not so proud;
A death in jail for this phony!"
I sat in the court room and watched all the jurors eyes. They were so innnocent
and so ignorant as they looked upon my husbands perdicament.
He was facing the death penalty and I could see the pain in his eyes as I tried to
reach out for him but a wall seemed to block us.
He had been charged with murdering a little girl about four or five and as I
watched the case my eyes began to fog.
I remembered the night it happened a day I would never forget. A saw him swing
the bat towards my legs but what he didn't see was our angel tightly hugging my
knees.
I had dealt with abuse from this man for 12 years and even though he beat me all
the time he would never touch Keisha. She was his little girl.
But just in that moment when the object collided I could see his hurt as if the bat
had hit him.
A few 911 calls later and handcuffs over hands and my husband was in jail but
my baby was dead.
I felt angry that he would even touch our little girl. She was my soul my heart and
my entire world.
But at the same time I knew he didn't mean to. I had seen many things in my life
but never had I seen him cry like he did that night.
I felt like my health was deterriating since the day she left. I'd lost five pounds in a
matter of days and my hair had fallen out in chunks. But I still stood up when the
verdict was about to be read.
I turned my attention back to the court as they said he was guilty.
A smile came up to my lips but than faded almost as quick as the judge
sentenced him to death I screamed " no he doesn't deserve this".
I watched as the parol officers took him away to meet his fate as my lips
trembled.
This was another day I would never forget.
"Beware Of the Ides of the men on black"
The judges and jurors of our fates, blink.
Every time we will, they will reform it
They even gave them new uniforms
But they preferred the black 'It suits them mos'
And more guns,lesser humanity.
The Leaders of tomorrow are forbidden from seeing the morrows.
Put on rags, glorify poverty;
Just maybe, you will live to see another day of this craze of population control.
While the men on black and their rifle embark on patrol.
Pim pim,
Vroom vroom,
Police vans, parked by road sides
And policemen standing akimbo on major roads
With flash torches, flashing bright lights
Into the faces of incoming drivers
And their passengers if any.
A remainder of
'You better hold change
Or we seize the whole money'
'The Police is Your friend' with stern faces
Hello, young man may we know you.
"Paddy mi, make we gather reach town"
4:20pm, Fresh fine boys gunned downtown.
One, two shots!
Another happy-trigger officer had shot his shots.
"Oga Olopa wetin my pikin do you?"
The oceans flowed endlessly, as their mothers cried.
"Tattoo, dreadlocks, piercing not our culture!"
The Police report read.
For dumbness echoes now, while wisdom has been coerced into a deep sleep.
The toils of tomorrow built with the youth's blood.
GHOPS (Pa Shakespeare) x O.C Adolf
Strict Justice or mercy, which would prevail
The courtroom grew sweaty, faces turned pale
No one dared leave with the verdict in doubt
Justice or mercy – Would Truth ever out
The jurors returned, their verdict in hand
The foreman, deliberative, made his way to the stand
Opening the envelope, he tapped the pulse of the room
Strict justice – or mercy if Hope was to bloom
…the seeds of neo-Nazism are germinating
Markus Nierth, former mayor of Tröglitz, Germany 2015
Germany’s rock candy windows and cookie like shingles make seeing the oven inside impossible. At first, the obsessive compulsive cleanliness of Nuremberg’s post-WWII streets is a joy. For a child of the melting pot, born after The Big One, it’s painful to recall the grimmer aspects of the Third Reich with their proposed eugenics. Nuremberg [rebuilt] roots in an elitist past hiding behind half-timbered houses of wattle and daub. Once the seat of the Holy Roman Empire seeped in power, then, a base for Hitler’s wunderkind rallies—now a soul-blighted bloom, a minor stop on the tourist trail.
Street walking pedestrians—the silent middle, staid, detached—stroll or bike along paths, immersed in white dreams. The pogroms of terror, stolen homes, and bridges made from Jewish Cemetery stones lie beneath layers of pristine paint and plaster. The Jews victimized for centuries, and the war trials, a mere subtext to tour guide chatter.
xenophobia
tamped down like an ash banked fire
waits to rise again
on a bellows breath of rage
spray painted on railroad cars
The site of my pilgrimage, The Palace of Justice—walled in panels of ashen mahogany—retains a dour mien. Judges, jurors and those to be tried, still use this hall. After-images of skeletal camp dweller and vain glorious generals rise wraith-like from the polished surfaces, paneling, pews, and copings. Greek God’s glower. A bronze crucifix castes judgment on all who pass: God fearing, or atheist. Justice is not present; horrors are not passed and conscience is now presented to the world as a fanatic in a suicide vest.
First Published in Artificium UK 2016
I don't look at the judge. I just look at the jury.
I don't look at the defendant or the defendant's attorney,
nor will I look a the prosecution assistant and or district attorney.
I will listen, not look at anyone giving sworn oath testimony.
As a juror I feel that it's my civic responsibility and duty
to decide strictly upon the evidence and not based on any ones appearance or personality.
My Justice is as blind as justice should be
not withstanding the decision that must be made beyond a reasonable doubt
based upon the hard core physical evidence presented to me that the judge will allow.
Every time I serve as juror, which believe it or not is an honor for me
I'm always dumbfounded by many other juror's stupidity
who are compelled to render this ultimate decision, Guilty or Not Guilty.
I wouldn't want 3/4's of the jurors I've met making such life changing decisions on me.
That's why I'll never turn down an opportunity to serve on a jury.
Everyone is Innocent until proved Guilty and all innocents need a juror like me.
When I informed a former boss that I was summoned to serve for jury duty,
my employer out right said, "Get out of it or you will no longer be employed by me."
Guess what I did. I served on the jury.
I'd rather lose my job, than risk someone who may otherwise be Not Guilty
losing much of their freedom and God given liberties.
*
Another personal note:
In Every Election I Vote.
*
The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd -
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.
While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”
With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.
The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches afterwhile”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.
The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
with crossing signs and bloody wines and consecrated yeast,
“The last are first, the rich are cursed.” (The leached remain the least.)
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and board and bows to Eden East;
he doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.
The sinking sun is now undone, the sky is fading red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.
Continued
Here, this day, on this inglorious
Field
Thy vain struggles will count no
Valour.
All hope now abandoned,
Imminent defeat unconcealed;
Erstwhile countenance display
Such waxen, languid pallor.
Surround by your dwindling
Forces
Ye will but sadly find...
That the stout keep of your
Valiant fortress is all but breached,
Once strong foundations failing -
Wherest badly undermined!
For a rigorous examination beckons
ye;
Stood before impassioned jurors
Chosen from the feared and all
Powerful families of the ignoble
Medici.
Black curtains drawn back from
Deep reveals
That look out over the enlightened
Years...
Where conceals...
Hidden between leafs of peremptory
Decree:-
A blight spread upon these lands,
Inflicted from Romes insidious
Plans -
That cause stain upon the
Renaissance of a golden century!
When clapping thunder breaks and
Brazen lightening clashes
Still I would know ye again:
A pounding, frenzied reflex devoid
Of all Godly purpose -
Detached from any amount of
Blame!
For I have sought ye out, O lowly
Meretrix;
Heaping upon you with bondage
Enforced through servitude and
Shame;
And I, O lowly Meretrix,
I...hereby command thy name.
A fastidious Advocate of intellectual
Character
Shallst I elect,
He who be a practitioner of
Theological proposal unrefrained,
To represent you -
Raised from the rank files of the
Dead and slain!
A public gallery, wherest seated,
Ghostly phantasms
That I purposefully select;
And for a judge - A deathly one:
Ill measured, worshipfully detached,
Beneath it all,
And hopelessly arcane.
This "Innocent" fool, dressed in
Guise of highest ecclesiastical
Enforcer,
Perpetuated a medieval Inquisition,
Both protracted and prolonged,
That openly boasted and rejoiced
In its zealous slaughter!
Thereby spawned a terrible edict -
"Ad Extirpanda":-
Cannon law that advocates the
Use of "Legitimate torture"!
Know thee also, Meretrix, the Pius
Pontiff,
Heaven sent,
Who in his greater wisdom
Convened over
The council of Trent:
Four hundred years spanning
Across a Reformations fears;
Reaffirmed when Pope John,
In reflective reiteration,
Was heard to chillingly hiss:
"What was...Still is"!
TO BE CONTINUED...
In restaurants, the food is served;
In tennis, it’s a ball.
In prison, it’s a stretch of time;
To jurors, it’s a call.
We serve our country, serve our guests
And serve at someone’s side;
We serve as ushers or as maids
To march before a bride.
We’re served a summons or a suit
To answer to the law
And sometimes, justice being served
Provides a deal that’s raw.
In life, however, oftentimes
What I, in fact, observe,
Is that we rarely get what we
Believe that we deserve.
i strive for you baby
Justice raped by a State of Wetbacks
Justice be a Commanders first love
You are stuttering cap that bull, you give a full account
What render aide? aint that a law?
Wait look at the video tape
Well DA said I was a special case.
Hey its ok Dan, hell man I been up there with you
Looking hard studying ever face of my Jurors
My fury, my fault, I still fall hard Im sorry Sheriff's
S.O. be paid and served with high respects
Jefferson be a racist mofo in my book
I pass by you like Soputhern gentlemen do
Respect? well Sir i carry a sword too
And I remember her, yea 911 operator a hot line
And The Captain hes hell on wheels
trust me you dont want to be on his badside
I learned this the hard way
In cell 1 segergation 4 mnths
Seashells were awesome back then
My cousin Amys daughter drowned to death
My mom got my kids back from the state
Oh yea I was in 7 highspeed chases
And trust Justice she always served me well
People rose in quick succession
As the bailiff said "All rise , this court is now in session"
The judge walked into the courtroom
And the trial would begin soon
My client stared straight ahead
On trial for killing the husband she had recently wed
He used to beat her after his drinking bouts
It was either him or her, no doubt
But it was a clear case of self defense
As I listened to the prosecutors opening statement
Then the first witness was called
An elderly woman who lived two houses away
She said she heard a loud argument on the night in question
Followed by two shots in quick succession
But she forgot to mention
That fireworks were going off on the night in question
As more witnesses were called
I cross examined them all
There was no denying that some of them were lying
The trial lasted for seven days
And there were many reasonable doubts raised
Finally it was given to the jury to deliberate
In their hands was my client's fate
On the fourth day a verdict was reached
My client stood up with tears in her eyes
As the judge said "Will the defendant please rise"
It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop
But my client's tears did not stop
The verdict was read rather quickly
"We the jurors find the defendant .... not guilty"!!
My clients fears turned to joy
As she hugged and thanked me
I had set the fair maiden free
From the dragon raging out of control
I was the hero, the dragon slayer of old
I am nothing but just a man
Everyone deserves a second a chance....
But we are blinded by hate that we have lost
the element of forgiveness
Our souls are so sacred with hatred that we
no
longer see the good in us
I am nothing but just a man so forgive me
when I don't meet up with your expectations
We constantly throw stones at each other
and
not using those stones to built something
greater than us.
Something we can die for; something we can
live for. Something we love.
I am nothing but just a man and let me cloth
myself in the judges gown and pass a
sentence
among our species. We open doors and let
good people out and pass invitation to the
bad
ones. We make mistakes and we shower in
our
tears. I am nothing but just a man but for
once
let me be the judge.
Though I might stand in the dock
Judged not by foreign jurors
But by my own rash actions and decisions
Awaiting judgement to be metted
Not one word will escape my lips
In defense of my innocence
But all I shall ask is a willing ear to hear my
soul as it speaks
Tawona M Ranganawa and Tanya
Ntombikayise
Masaire
a glimpse of heaven
a taste of hell
that's what he perceived
at death's dreaded knell
summoned to court
he gasped hard when he saw
the judge and the jurors
his wife and kids ~
his maw and paw
Overboard
Knocked overboard by my brother the leech,
I awoke to find myself on a beach,
covered in seaweed and sand.
I’ll ruin his plans; I’ll fight and survive,
with no real supplies, I’ll conquer and thrive,
till justice I’ll demand.
On a tall windy hill, I built my shack;
out of the swamps; away from bugs attack,
beside the volcano.
On hilltops perch, my fire flashed to sea,
where those who search, could easily find me;
was lit by drill and bow.
Fresh water filled a hole from daily rain,
with Tortoise Bob to ease my lonely pain;
I bore my toiling stay.
In the island’s lagoon I speared my fish.
Each morn I arose by prayer and a wish,
to survive through the day.
Now in court I stand for jury to see,
the dark depths of my brothers treachery,
as the fear in him grows.
Thoughtful jurors moved to another room,
to quickly return, and lower the boom,
and send to the gallows.
1/10/2017
For the Tropical Island contest.
Villanelle: The only thing the masses can buy
The only thing the masses can buy
That’s not listed on the stock market
The one-way ticket out of our sky
They scrub they shine they barely e’er cry
With no bats to defend their wicket
The only thing the masses can buy
Marx and Engels tried to tell them why
Yet unions all the reasons forget
The one-way ticket out of our sky
Best show on earth watch democrat ploy
Big Ben Speaker cry “ORDER” and fidget
The only thing the masses can buy
Yet the masses sell votes on the sly
To slice bi-cameral house in secret
The one-way ticket out of our sky
Duped by spam tv fearful and shy
See they why Socrates kicked the bucket*
The only thing the masses can buy
The one-way ticket out of our sky
* "The trial of Socrates (399 BC) was held to determine the philosopher’s guilt of two charges: asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens, and corruption of the youth of the city-state; the accusers cited two impious acts by Socrates: “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges” and “introducing new deities”.
The death sentence of Socrates was the legal consequence of asking politico-philosophic questions of his students, from which resulted the two accusations of moral corruption and of impiety. At trial, the majority of the dikasts (male-citizen jurors chosen by lot) voted to convict him of the two charges; then, consistent with common legal practice, voted to determine his punishment, and agreed to a sentence of death to be executed by Socrates’s drinking a poisonous beverage of hemlock." (Source Wikipedia)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2018