The
Poetry
Defense
Will the poem please rise.
(The poem stands, holds
up right hand)
Do you agree to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you
God?
“If allowed to be myself.”
It’s come to the attention
of this court that you
will be representing
your case
and giving unsolicited
testimony in opposition
to the standard norm
as you seem to suffer
from a form of autism,
an inability to hold
your own at table.
“I do not suffer autism,
rather, I speak in tongues;
the language of
consequence.”
Is it true that you are the
sole witness to a murder
in which a body
has yet to be found?
“I myself am murdered
on a daily basis
as my existence
no longer
causes a stir.”
Is it true you can never be
sure what you saw
but can make your feelings known
via magnetic refrigerator verse
and a Scrabble of nouns
and verbs that you
have claimed as the last
vestige for honesty?
“I am a consciousness
in recovery, your honor.”
Is it also true that you are
incapable of the literal
and choose only to think
with your heart?
“I find facts too unfeeling.”
It says here that you are
incapable of lying
as truth is always
what you refer to
as “said” feeling.
“A poem has no reason to lie.
Nor will you reason me away.”
How is it that you are able
to testify from inside your body
when, in fact, you only have life
to those who gaze upon you?
“To ease the burden
of my gift for knowing,
I wait to be loved.”
Does this odd cadence
of yours
assist you
in remembering?
“My way of speaking
is my crux for change.”
How so? You might please
the court by giving us
an example.
“Money spends us.”
Surely you can be more explicit.
“I am not a bill of goods.”
It states here that
on cross examination
you were able to
make use of
time travel to trace
the very first ring
you purchased with your
allowance earned by
mowing lawns and carrying
your father’s golf clubs
at a local Country Club.
I believe it was
during a side trip
to see “The Mystery Spot”,
where you say it was
actually possible
to roll a ball uphill.
It says here that it was
off highway I-75 that your
family’s blue Buick struck
and killed a deer.
Was that in fact, the first time
you saw a thing die?
“I don’t curry in facts, but
I’ve seen myself die
many times.”
Come now, you can’t say
such a thing so blithely
when you stand before
this court so clearly
evidence to the contrary.
“I am never contrary.”
Allow me to press you further.
It’s written here that this
incident with the deer
led to a protracted puberty
spent practicing witchcraft,
a kind of latent sorcery.
“I am helpless to be
anything other than
the sum total of my
own ramifications.”
Do you pretend to be so elliptical
that you find it unnecessary
to explain yourself to the satisfaction
of this court? Would you dare to be
so un-bold as to be
blasphemous?
“My hidden talent is for playing
dead by the side of the road.”
Then your words are less
than antidotal.
“I am con to your prose.
I am more antidote.
Therefore, you are
the blasphemy.”
I would address this court
with more respect. It is not your
place to file complaint.
“Poetry never complains.
If it’s any good.”
What else does poetry never do,
I’d be remiss not to ask?
(The poem begins to shed it’s garments.)
“I make no judgments
of those who observe me.
I pass no illnesses, nor carry germs.
I don’t gossip and never name names.
I won’t ask your age
or make small talk.
I never condemn the other.”
Go on, then.
“I am a gorgeously open-minded
corpse more than willing to be
lingered over by a cabal
of curious strangers.
I am a translator of spirit
and a vehicle for space travel,
inner and outer.
I am a vessel for relinquished
desire.
I am both chaff and wheat,
I am the ache to be whole.
A uniter of friends and enemies.
I am after all willing to stand
before you naked and shivering
stripped to the essential thing
for your callous inspection.
Don’t you see
I am naked before you, madams
and sirs!!”
You do well to unburden yourself.
Continue.
“I can disentangle your prides
and dismantle your fears
because I can make them mine.
I can lance a wound.
I can mix the blood of both
victim and perpetrator
and hold up a mirror
to your mirror and glimpse infinity.”
I dare say you are a know-it-all.
“I can get to the bottom of things,
show you what might go wrong
in cleaving to the literal and material
at the expense of the sacred.”
Then I suspect you are a force
to be reckoned with. Whatever
are we to conclude of you?
“Wedge me in a bottle
and cast me out to sea.
Go on living your lives
of logic and accumulation.
I will not be added to your
chaos of clutter.
I demand you embrace my
utter lack of utility.
I am guilty, your honor.
Do with me what you will,
only let me testify
to the astonishment
of having once been
gloriously
and inexplicably
alive.
(pause)
The defense rests.”
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