Courtroom Drama

Old fashioned men in old fashioned suits,
Charcoal and pin-stripe turn ups.
Black silk waistecoats, hand-tailored by Wally Walowska,
A spattering of tightly-knit, cream wigs that keep the knowledge warm.
And that unmistakable smell of cowhide and furniture polish,
Normally associated with the Chapel of rest.

The wrinkly old giant, book open, inhales years of legal wrangle,
And is careful to remind me that wisdom is for sipping out of China cups,
And not to be gulped from galvanised buckets.

I answer with my remorseful eyes in offering my jugular to society,
Yet find time to concentrate on his hunched outline,
While the Prosecution prepare to remove my dignity,
With the stainless steel blade of justice.

There, my peers before me,
Stand I, the accused,
Sweating to a handful of questions,
All dolled up and bemused.
He asks me things to which he already knows the answer,
A quip,
An eye for that sympathetic juror,
A gesture or two,
Like the slamming of his hand upon the table,
And the wagging of a finger,
As he finagles truth to suit.

And as the monster, law, has fill of justice for another sleepy day,
My only thought is that his wife should leave him tonight,
And justice be mine, in an ironic sort of way.