Dave Hall
Crown Court
Dieu et Mon Droit,
Crown Court; Lion and Unicorn,
The whole building soars out of the ground six floors,
A concrete overhang shelter
For two summer-night-sleepers-out
Who neatly fold their stuff,
Drifting off for an early morning smoke
As the professionals move in across the sun-lit plaza.
This is the Palace of Truth and Lies and Happenstance
Whose wide clear windows show the world outside
All its clutter and clarity hopelessly muddled and mixed.
That burly businessman of only moments ago
Who commanded all that space in the street
Is shrunk to the size of a doll from the floor you've reached,
While here the tearful girl, taller than both her parents
Sits with her king-size smouldering in her lap,
Already averaged down till a way was lost.
Notice the judge's occasional shrug and grimace,
The prosecuting counsel's flawless tan,
And the collective anxiety of the jury,
The stillness of its loss, filing out
To find a fiction which seems to fit the facts
Blurred intentionally, and not, what was meant
Or was never meant to be.
Outside again; the hurrying streets,
A light summer wind just blowing aimlessly about;
You see people on the pavements
Who you'd swear you thought you knew
And they look straight through you as they pass.
Crown Court; Lion and Unicorn,
The whole building soars out of the ground six floors,
A concrete overhang shelter
For two summer-night-sleepers-out
Who neatly fold their stuff,
Drifting off for an early morning smoke
As the professionals move in across the sun-lit plaza.
This is the Palace of Truth and Lies and Happenstance
Whose wide clear windows show the world outside
All its clutter and clarity hopelessly muddled and mixed.
That burly businessman of only moments ago
Who commanded all that space in the street
Is shrunk to the size of a doll from the floor you've reached,
While here the tearful girl, taller than both her parents
Sits with her king-size smouldering in her lap,
Already averaged down till a way was lost.
Notice the judge's occasional shrug and grimace,
The prosecuting counsel's flawless tan,
And the collective anxiety of the jury,
The stillness of its loss, filing out
To find a fiction which seems to fit the facts
Blurred intentionally, and not, what was meant
Or was never meant to be.
Outside again; the hurrying streets,
A light summer wind just blowing aimlessly about;
You see people on the pavements
Who you'd swear you thought you knew
And they look straight through you as they pass.
Page(s) 33
magazine list
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- Atlas
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- French Literary Review, The
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- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
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- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
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- Quarto
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- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The