The Scales of Injustice (Parts 1-4)

1

When the so-called justice
system has been reduced
to a playground for puerile abuse;

to a sort of judicial gymnasium
for lawyers  to play verbal games in;
       to a forum  for pathetically petty
       habitually cynical  juridical antics

the justice system
no small thanks to semantics
— which is to say  based
on the notion evoked by its name —
              can only ever add
              irony to injury and insult to pain.


2

When spin is king and appearance queen
and falsehood carries the skin-deep day
              deceit and persuasion hold sway

and if truth be told  by being so bold
       as to tweak and expand an old saw
it's clear that perception's nine-tenths
              of this theatre we refer to as law.


3

In a system that's rigged
       proceedings and cedures
              are nothing if not a bad joke
— who needs facts
              or cares for what's fair
       when it's easier to scape
                            some ill-fated goat?


"Guilty as framed
for this  and essentially any charge
the state   or crown may care to lay!"
is what judges would   if half-honest
                            honestly often say
but of course they aren't so they don't

       and they won't  so bloody long
       as dissembling is rewarded
              and probity's perceived
              as some corny old-time song.


To the wrongly convicted
the system  is strictly a nasty hoax;
       a process that's happy
       to drown veracity
       in the blood of blameless folks;

an expedient process
       that rather than focus
              on fingering guilty parties
spends its time   finding parties guilty;

a process that tries
to minimize or hide
its misconduct-studded trails
              when caught 'solving crime'
              by consigning patsies to jail.


4

How remorseless courts
keep voracious  for-profit prisons gorged
is all too often as follows:   you either admit
you did something you didn't
and with good behaviour you're out after five

       or   if you think the Big Die in the Sky
              will change its unfavourable ways
                     and settle for once on your side

       and you'd rather gamble
       with the laughable caliber of counsel
              the state  is only too game to supply

you can enter a plea of not g
              to a far steeper charge
                            and be lucky to get out alive.

• Parts 5-9 are scheduled for publication on February 20, 2022.

This article was posted on Sunday, February 13th, 2022 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.