"courthouse" poems
Faking Bad
In anticipation of my
Evaluation to be declared
Non Compos Mentos
I slept under a bridge
For three days
"Getting into character,"
But on the morning of
My intake interview
My hair fell perfectly,
I mean I looked like
A ******* rock star.
College girls on the bus
Were giving me their
Numbers and my skin,
Which I'd purposely sunburnt
And caked in the finest filth,
Glowed like an Australian
Chippendale dancer named Weegie
And even the female Assisstant D.A.
Who had busted me for vagrancy
Waved her ******* from
The third story building
Of the Courthouse.
No matter how much I
Tried to speak gibberish
Poetry and philosophical
Tracts spewed from my mouth.
Shuffling past the park
I beat eight
Grand Masters
At chess on move 1
Inadvertently I solved
The Phi Epsilom Theorem
By kicking stones
Into an algorythym.
When I arrived they didn't
Make me wait at all.
My caseworker giggled like
A schoolgirl while I told her
Each day was like an endless shift
In a Chinese fish- gutting
Sweatshop and every one of my fellow
Employees was motivationalist
Richard Simmons.
She ungirdled her enormous
**** and as they spilled
Like fishguts onto the desk
She began to howl
**** me, **** me, oh ****
Me right here in
Front of the open window
On State Street as everyone
Watches me ******* the strongest,
Healthiest, smartest, most popular,
Well-adjusted man in the world.
The rest of the examination was
Also a success.
But as I left the Mental HealthCenter
feeling marvelous
I accidentally bumped
An old woman with the door:
"Watch out you manic-depressive
Schizoid with Socially Avoidant
Features klutz."
-Thomas L. Vaultonburg
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 5:05 PM UTC
You make an announcement
To your family and friends
Meetings with the preacher
Seem never-ending
No big deal or celebration
Just a trip to the courthouse
To sign the papers
Two rings, two hearts
A few words from the judge
And you’re done
Everyone shakes hands
You came as a couple
But leave alone
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
It was a
****** mary morning,
with a Van Gogh sky.
I woke up early, and
found a bar that did the
same.
My kind of place
dark
and empty.
I began ordering ****** marys,
one after another.
At noon I paid
my bill and
caught the bus downtown.
I had to be at the
courthouse at one for a
probation violation hearing.
I met my lawyer in the
hall.
He said,
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’re drunk,” he shouted.
“I’m fine,” I said.
I followed him into the
courtroom.
We sat down across the
table from the
prosecutor.
As soon as we sat
down,
he said,
“Come with me.”
I got up and followed
him into the
judges chambers.
He handed me a small
machine with a
tube attached,
and said,
“Blow in this.”
I did.
He said, "This must be your
lucky day.
It’s broken.
Do you want a
week in jail or
a month more
probation?”
I’ll take the longer
probation, I said
I had nothing but
time, and a small
amount of cash.
I walked out of
the court house.
Everything
looked ******
Mar 3, 2023
Mar 3, 2023 at 6:55 AM UTC
I will buy a wedding dress,
and I will send a letter to all the people I ever loved
and ever loved me
and it will say "I will be at the courthouse
in my dress
and I will marry the first one to show."
If no one shows,
I will drink a bottle of wine to myself
and dance in the dress until I'm covered
in nothing but cumulonimbus.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 6:00 AM UTC
Oh, the sensation, the media frenzy,
The spotlight, the fame, the hullabaloo,
When anti-evolution laws
Were challenged by the ACLU!
The year: 1925.
The place: Dayton, Tennessee.
To say it was an extravaganza
Wouldn't be hyperbole.
For many people it was hard
To find a way to reconcile
Biblical accounts with science,
So science found itself on trial.
A young teacher, John T. Scopes,
Was willing to face prosecution
For breaking a Tennessee law for having
Given a lesson on evolution.
The "Monkey Trial" it was called.
The challenge meant swimming upstream
For the feisty lawyer Clarence Darrow,
Who helped to lead the defense team.
A prosecutor was William Jennings
Bryan, who with no apology
Loved to stir up outrage against
Evolutionary biology.
Defendant Scopes quickly found
It wouldn't take long for him to know
What it was like to have a part
In a multimedia reality show.
The courthouse received a make-over:
Platforms for newsreel cameras were built;
Extra spectator seats were added.
They were playing the trial to the hilt.
Concession stands sold food and drinks;
Toy monkeys were on display;
A chimp was dressed in a suit and fedora;
The clergy also joined the fray.
The media and the public loved it!
The country watched the trial progress.
What would win: science or scripture?
The answer was probably easy to guess.
After an eight-day trial, the jury
Deliberated. Nine minutes later
They had their verdict: guilty! How
Could someone question THEIR creator?
Scopes had actually never given
The lesson. That's what he later said.
Strangely, five days after the trial,
Williams Jennings Bryan dropped dead.
Laws later changed, but even during
Current times, some people feel
That stories from the Bible should be
In science textbooks. Now THAT'S surreal!
-by Bob B (11-6-18)
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
The stately oak stands solemn and quiet
Alongside the bucolic covered bridge
Its branches hanging downward as if tired
Leaves falling slowly into the current
Of the rain swollen Watauga River
The shadow of the tree clinging starkly
Onto the weathered century-old planks
Speaking of a time not so far removed
When bridge and tree was the gathering place
For a day's respite from a hard week's toil
Farmers, merchants, wives and children gathered
With picnic baskets filled with fried chicken
The women chatting in their new bonnets
The children wearing last year's Sunday best
While the men make bets like Roman soldiers
The low mound where the tree's roots are anchored
Bare earth beneath the lowest hanging limb
A crude stool of newly cut pine upright
While waiting for the next unwilling guest
Courthouse clock chimes the hour of Golgotha
r 14Jan14
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:40 PM UTC
I think of karma of a mental parasite rather than a celestial courthouse. Yea I mean they'll get what's coming to them but this "mental parasite" is so much worse. It's a mental parasite as in the way you've done something you now believe everyone is capable of that. The way a thieve thinks everyone is a thieve. Its something that plagues the mind, makes one weary of others.
(Expand at a later time)
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 1:14 AM UTC
A Salt Shaker Glass
*Just a folded piece of paper
In a salt shaker glass
Placed deep inside the cupboard
Hiding memories of the past
I would watch her as she'd take it out
To read the words it said
Then place it back deep inside
And slowly bow her head
She kept it in a shaker
Hoped salt would heal the wound
But each time she read the words inside
The pain would seem so new
That folded piece of paper
In a salt shaker glass
Was delivered from the courthouse
To set her free at last
A divorce from my father
Who had walked away from us
She folded and refused to sign
Till that day that I grew up
As I read that piece of paper
From the salt shaker glass
I thought of all she gave to me
And felt the love inside she had
Just a folded piece of paper
In a salt shaker glass
Placed deep inside the cupboard
Hiding memories of the past
A folded piece of paper
In a salk shaker glass *
Carl Joseph Roberts
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 7:12 AM UTC
Now sit there, just a minute, hold on, hear my tale
for just a minute.
One of humanity, sincerity, tragedy
Of when I was there, live from the square.
Jackson Square.
Not the one of Coin Coin, the Nevilles, the Toussaints,
Allen or L’Overture.
This is one of a momma and her baby
in 2008.
Three years, three years,
three years after the flood, three years after the storm.
Let me paint you a picture of Orleans as it stood one day in 2008
as it stands today.
2008, NewOrleans:
What happens here, no one will remember in the morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.
Walking towards Bourbon
The lights, the sin, the history
New Orleans, where life ain't so easy.
There’s a family down there who don't survive so peacefully.
You can see them if you walk down Canal St., leisurely.
There, sleeping on the courthouse stairs,
A mother and her child who own only the clothes they wear.
The boy was young, elementary-aged
Curious too, I could hear him ask questions:
"Mama, why don't we got food?"
And her reply,
"Son, that's just the way it is, life's just hard for me and you."
Sitting there on the courthouse stairs.
I take my place on the opposite side of the stoop,
Watching the crowds go by.
The women in their high-heeled shoes
The men with their shirts half-open.
Grenades in hand, ***** in the blood,
Pockets full of cash and hearts full of lust
New Orleans
What happens there, no one will remember come morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.
There’s a family on vacation there
In such a sinful city, a family.
White, middle-class, suburban, all too WASP-y.
mom, dad, a daughter and a son,
elementary aged, with a pop in his cheerful step,
On the way to a nice restaurant
gon’ eat crawfish, gator, red beans and rice, jambalaya.
They’ll forget to tip the waiter.
New Orleans,
What happens here, no one will remember come morning.
That happy family, walking down Canal St.
Like walking out the gates of hell
Where the lost souls sit on the stairs
Begging for something, anything at all
The happy family had ‘bout reached the courthouse when the young boy asked
"Daddy, why don't they have any food?"
His father covered his son’s eyes with his white hand and replied,
"Here son, let's go and find a toy for you to buy."
And the kid shrank after seeing this mom and her son
His innocent eyes died and he said,
"I don't want a toy. I don't want anything"
They walked on by, the happy boys' head turned the whole time,
those eyes. Stuck on the family that was stuck on the stairs
Mom dad, a daughter and a son,
Elementary-aged with a slump in his sunken step.
Now, in my mind I wonder:
was it more monumental that my life changed
or that a had life changed before my eyes
New Orleans, two thousand and eight.
New Orleans, today,
what happens there, no one will remember come morning.
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 11:35 AM UTC
I'm not a great man,
But,
I've been here and there, and I've learned a lot.
Like how not to get shot,
And where to buy ***
I've bent every misdemeanor law,
Some would call me a libertarian,
I say democracy is a farce,
Keep your vote, and leave me out of it.
Most of what I know is useless idiosyncratic observation.
For instance,
I know how many days it takes to hide 73 pipes, and other miscellaneous paraphernalia.
My father was raised in the depression,
He refused to let us throw anything out,
And we had a chest of drawers, full of old junk.
Watches without bands, and any piece of scrap paper,
That had free space on it. Last years receipt, dry cleaning tickets, etcetera...
And,
Subsequently,
It rubbed off on me,
And I hate throwing anything out.
I don't buy new stuff, until the old stuff goes bust.
I had a 10 pound Toshiba satellite, for 8 years,
Until the plug jack came loose, and I fried the sucker.
So when my doctor told me I had to quit smoking...
Everything,
I had forty plus years of accumulated paraphernalia.
I gave a pipe, to friends who were interested,
But it wasn't enough.
I hear you saying it now,
"You irresponsible old lunatic!"
And you're right, but I look at it a little different.
You might call it promoting lawlessness,
I say a law that is obsolete should be repealed.
Walk down the street, you'll see the dime bags,
and blunt wrappers everywhere.
No need to promote something that will happen anyway.
Teens will smoke, so I hid a bunch near high schools.
Up at Rutgers, I hid one in ten different buildings,
A few outside of the police station, and the courthouse,
And one in the bushes of my snobby neighbor.
Any place I could think of, I hid a pipe.
Rebellion be ****** I did it because I felt good,
Like a simple **********
A stolen cherry, in the supermarket.
Sowhatsthepoint?
Crime isn't cool kiddies,
But, as long as you steer clear of felonious activity,
They won't send you to real **** ****** jail.
Even your grandma, probably jaywalks from time to time.
Oh if you stumble on one of my pipe hiding spots,
Don't touch it until your old enough.
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 24, 2012 at 9:18 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Socrates on the Courthouse Lawn in Liberty, Texas
“Strong minds discuss ideas,
average minds discuss events,
weak minds discuss people.”
-attributed to Socrates, but no one knows
Imagine if you will old Socrates
On an old wooden bench on the courthouse lawn
Playing checkers with all the other old men
On an old picnic table throughout the day
He lifts his old straw hat in the leafy shade
With his old bandana he wipes his old bald head
And sagely asks the old questions of us
And through his dialectic dismantles old cant
And that must be why, as the ages pass
They’ve made for him a monument here in the grass
(While passing through Liberty, Texas I saw on the courthouse lawn a marble slab engraved only with “Socrates”.)
Liberty County Courthouse - TexasCourtHouses.com
Liberty, Texas, Bed & Breakfast Hotels (usatoday.com)
Socrates (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Mar 14, 2021
Mar 14, 2021 at 9:25 AM UTC
On a cold, grey Bronx September day, an old man stood on the Courthouse plaza.
His palsied hand reached out to touch the monument to his life’s sole drama.
He’d just turned nineteen when the A.E.F. had been ordered to assist the French.
Near Chateau-Thierry He helped hold the bridge without the safety of a trench.
“We Marines fought like devil Dogs” He whispered softly to the rain.
“The Germans came, wave after wave, but only the stars and stripes remained.”
“Paris was spared and the foe was impressed by our Marine’s defiant dogged defense.”
“My best friends died, but I survived to keep them in remembrance.”
“We stopped the Germans at the Marne.” He felt an old familiar pain.
Some might say that the old man cried, but he would say it was just the rain.
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 11:20 AM UTC
I spent another evening
In one corner of
My mind...
My conscience is
Left bleeding,
And I don't know what I'll find...
My future hangs in balance,
I'm too nervous
To sleep,
But still I keep my chalice,
I fill it and
I drink...
The courthouse is
A palace,
Of justice and of
Peace,
But when I walk inside it
I shake from head
To feet...
I beg the gods I
Don't believe
To grant me just
Some peace...
Please let me enter
Into hell
And walk out
On two feet...
Oh, let me enter into hell
And walk out
On two feet...
Aug 14, 2023
Aug 14, 2023 at 2:56 AM UTC
I walk aimless, but alert, down moon washed streets
In the twilight, I strain to tell patron from vagrant
A coalescing of something at once ageless, but fading
Like the stone of this courthouse; pillars of justice
Cracked quietly by the steady chiseling of time
On forgotten foundations
In the air rests a stench of contempt, or neglect
Like an oil stain, thickening turquoise waves
To a sickening ooze, of endless, crashing degradation
A nation of people, betrothed to suitors unknown
The power of a dollar hedged against the weight of your soul
Where pockets are plump, and virtue is sold
Aug 3, 2021
Aug 3, 2021 at 11:53 PM UTC
dark lung coughs
up all the reasons he should cease
going on with the charade of normality
its mental noodling fools few
and only confirms for everyone
that his nervous smile
contains more than just dark thoughts
he waits the morning out and with a
greasy eye watches clean woman smile
her full figure form fit lie
suits her fly by night nature
but to him she is the perfection
of absolute imperfections
she is practiced in thouse airs
shes follows Hollywood's nightmare's
and how they have become so accessible and acceptable
the movie starlet high on coke shoplifts
so the faithful flock in tears to the courthouse gate
and weep for their martyr princess
dark lung and his near perfect
knockoff Gucci bag girlfriend
are shopping tonight online
with backwards glances they will go on
survive this day
and look back on this summer with rose color glasses
giving casual nods to to
the ease in which they survived
the struggle
the are expecting a baby
dark lung and near perfect
are expecting a baby
gonna name him Elijah
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 6:10 AM UTC
A guitar, a kiss, a river, a lighter, a flag, a country, an idea
A glorious fire, a beautiful catalyst
They told me quit playing politics
I can't hear them over the noise from the streets, from the gutters, from the shelters, from the welfare office, from the edge of ******* nowhere,
I said speak a little louder now,
I said open this **** up right now,
I said tear this ******* prison down,
I said get all these ******* cops outta here,
I said storm this ******* courthouse,
I said hold them all ******* hostage now,
I said get real now,
I said organize right now,
I said build that barricade now,
I said stop talking ******** now,
I said **** them up for real,
They descend on us angry and vicious and afraid
They strike but we strike back harder
They **** us but we get back up
They ask us to forgive but we're fresh outta redemption
They asked Jimi Hendrix to forgive centuries of racism because he could eat a guitar and they loved what he spit back up,
Jimi Hendrix told em to go to hell,
Jimi Hendrix died believing,
We'll all die believing if we're lucky
Guns out, masks up, screaming as the breath fades from the lungs
Come on, take my Earth
Take it if you dare
Take it from my cold dead hands
We've been through this, we'll go through it again
But it's getting late and we're running out of options
It's liberty or death and we all have a choice to make
It's liberty or death and Jimi Hendrix chose both
Jimi Hendrix rolled the dice and landed on eternity
Jimi Hendrix took the world on his shoulders and rode off into the wind with a guitar and a book of matches,
And I wonder,
How many fires he would've set, before he could call himself free, and believe it
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 4:16 AM UTC
Home of the free and land of the brave
The home I reside in isn't free and with all these deaths it should've been called land of the grave
So, why should I fear death?
Even when I go about things the right way and subtract bad decisions death will always be left
Keep your eyes peeled and light on your heel
These bullets are like my words, not meant for a specific person can be for anyone to feel
And I'm not trying to disrespect the people that protest
But you'll never see me protest anything because everyday there's a new thing to protest
Dead people found in freezers, protest
Racial profiling, protest
Immigration laws, protest
And while we're talking about immigration, I've seen more marriages at the courthouse than ever
I'm starting to think nursing isn't where the money and success is at and officiating marriages be my new focus
Hurricanes came with pain and aim to level everything so nothing be the same
But if you want my opinion, disasters like these give cities new reason to rebuild bigger and better
Rebuild and reevaluate financial importance
Let's try building more homes and ignore a need for a fence
Many people might call this talent but I'm just speaking facts
During the daytime I'm just a regular college student trying to find my way in life
But at night I'm the dark knight trying to make my city a better place with words instead of bats
Sep 24, 2017
Sep 24, 2017 at 2:15 PM UTC
Judge Bristol pronounced his sentence with the following words and said,
"The said William Bonney, alias Kid, alias William Antrim
shall be hanged by the neck until his body be dead, Dead, DEAD!!!"
Shackled Billy left the courthouse smiling, almost as if in glee.
"Why are you smiling?" an interviewer asked him inquisitively.
"What's the point in dwelling on the dreary side of life?" the Kid responded,
"Today the joke is on me."
A true tribute to The Kid's charm, humor and endearing personality.
The above is not legend. The above is true documented history.
Jul 31, 2010
Jul 31, 2010 at 10:33 AM UTC
In the town where I grew up
You still can hear the chime
Of the old courthouse clock
As it counts away the time
Uncountable are the days
That too this place have come and gone
Causing so much here to change
In this town that I call home
The passing of the time
Has taken loved ones dear
And nothing is the same
Without their presence here
Time changes everything
It doesn't slow nor stop
So continues the counting chime
Of the old courthouse clock
RLB
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 6:07 PM UTC
A sadness haunts that town.
stuffed between the cracks
of dilapidated matchbox houses,
and in the grit of rusty trailers.
Even below the green carpet of government buildings,
And the marble courthouse floor.
Poverty stares Wealth in the face from across the street,
his haunted, empty eyes
lit by the embers of discarded cigarettes.
Wealth is good at glossing over the cracks,
setting up the chain link fences and rail road tracks.
Iron curtains that could be stepped over,
if anyone knew they were there.
But no matter how many fences,
there's still that nameless sadness in the soil.
A potent concoction
of dead dreams, harsh realities, and broken hearts.
With a dash of Cherokee tears and lead from the War.
All stirred by Monotony,
who lights her cauldron fire
with electric bills and dollar store receipts.
Like a curse, it spares none.
Though they've learned how to smile
with tears in their eyes,
above moth eaten scarves or pearls.
It's permeated everything, down to the roots.
But not to leave the glass half empty;
Some still find happiness,
some are still sad.
That's just how it goes.
Hope and despair are but two notes in the same tune.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
**** boy in the courthouse
Dark jeans, button down
Green eyes scannin round
Talking like a king now
And they don't know ****
But here you are again
Cause you saw your boy Blake
Elmwood beat the **** outta him
So now you gotta deal, cause you saw it all happen
Battle after battle, baby you're the baddest
So **** are your veins when you're at your maddest
Sad boy, dab boy
I'm your glass doll toy
Keep bein a mystery,
I love this part of the story
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 8:56 PM UTC
. {a parable of celebrity} .
Ol' Rip [died January 19, 1929]; was a horned lizard
commonly referred to as a horned toad, or ***** toad,
whose supposed 31-year hibernation
as an entombed animal is believed
by some and doubted by others.
His name is a reference to the fictional character Rip Van Winkle.
In 1897, a horned lizard was placed in a cornerstone
of the Eastland County Courthouse in Eastland,
Texas along with other time capsule memorabilia.
When the courthouse was torn down 31 years later,
the cornerstone was opened on February 18, 1928,
a live horned lizard was produced,
allegedly from within the time capsule. The lizard became a celebrity,
and went on tour,
even being taken to Washington, D.C. to meet President Calvin Coolidge.
Ol' Rip died eleven months later,
and his remains are on display in the new Eastland County Courthouse.
In 1973 the body was stolen
and an anonymous letter explained
that the finding of Ol' Rip alive had been a hoax
and demanded other unnamed co-conspirators come forth.
When no one did, another letter was received
saying the coffin and body could be found in the county fairgrounds.
The coffin was found there and returned to the courthouse.
Some speculate that the body in the coffin was a substitute,
the real lizard
| now held in a private collection. |
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 7, 2018 at 3:28 AM UTC
Tender,
Kind hearted maiden,
Wanting to die, dying to live!
Scorched in the abyss of fallen angels,
Star spangled!!
Simplistic treasure,
Lying amongst the feathers,
Where her pillow is made by tears,
Come near!!!
Lavished in garb,
Cloaked by charm,
For men are your downfall,
Foreign dream, ancient queen
Of after hours channels!!
Media shall ban you,
Pull through uncurrupt,
Maker of bluff,
And rainbow intuition!!
Pius of stitches!!
Memorandum you are,
As courthouse judges will shun you,
Glutton movies punish you,
As you were not made for this world!!!
Lost treasure, lost pearl!!
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 11:13 AM UTC
Coming through arches and glass
Out with your bags, inspected fast
Under a tree in a garden's sun
Read out the rules to everyone
Tell us how to drive safe as kids
Homilize on the things people did
Over and done, we get our cards
Useful for work or for fun
Seems like only yesterday
Everyone had to ask 'rents for a way
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 7:48 AM UTC