Inquisitorial Verses

(Star Chambers and Grist Millers)

Once was wished
upon a Starr
a difference made
for who you are
if mortal trousers
you help stain
while wife
rigid-lipped
from decree nisi
refrains.
When the frigid
fails in headcount
raced
Found electronic
crimes
are traced.
Election bought
or soon resold
paid in full
in New York gold.
Yet all the theft,
her bold conceit
yielded not
one foreign
receipt.
A story
most exaggerated
can only be
corroborated
with all the Truth
incarcerated.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..