Justice is unjust,
When it merely imposes,
The will of the state.

_______

Justice
Time: The all too near future
Place: A courtroom
Setting: Final sentencing of a prisoner convicted of the last remaining capital offense on the books of a kinder, gentler, fairer world in which equality is no longer a mere aspiration.
________

The prisoner stared impassively into the camera. The bright lights causing beads of sweat to form above his eyes and forcing him to squint, his perspiration-soaked thinning hair flattened unflatteringly against his forehead. No sound could be heard other than the faint hum of the air conditioning whose airflow was directed from the high ceiling above the high seats of the three judge panel, towards the three judges, keeping their immediate area comfortably cool. The camera trained on them remained a respectful distance away, and no harsh lights illuminated their somber countenances.

All three judges stared at the camera showing no emotion, their hands folded in front of them on the surface of their capacious bench on top of three equal stacks of paper placed before them. Everywhere on earth citizens watched the unfolding drama over the neural net that provided a fully immersive experience indistinguishable from reality, effectively placing every citizen on the planet in the courtroom as the Chief Judge began to speak in a deep, resonant, clear voice.

“The evidence against you has been examined. This tribunal finds you guilty of the charges against you by a unanimous vote. Have you anything to say before we pass sentence?”

The camera cuts back to the prisoner. The lights brighten around him and the heat rises perceptibly, adding fresh fuel to the trickle of sweat flowing down his flushed face, causing a bead of sweat to form at the end of his nose that he is unable to swat away because his wrists are restrained by metal bands at the armrests of his metal chair, outside the viewing range of the camera’s tight zoom on his face.

“I am guilty of no crime,” the prisoner protests in a low voice full of palpable weariness and resignation.

“You are guilty of the most heinous of crimes,” the Chief Judge contradicts, raising his voice and causing the prisoner to cringe.
“That is not open to debate. This is your final chance to make what amends you may to those whom you have harmed through your selfish, deviant act. It will have no effect on this Court’s sentence.”

“But I have done nothing wrong,” the man emphatically protests again, as ribbons of perspiration roll down his neck and deepen the growing ring of dark sweat absorbed by his bright orange jumpsuit, leaving a collar of dark moisture around his neck.

“Silence!” the Chief Judge hisses through tight lips. “The record will show that the prisoner is unrepentant. This Court finds that he willfully, maliciously and without justification removed his neural connector with the purpose and effect of severing his connection to the neural nets. We further find that the motivating factor for this most egregious, malevolent and repugnant crime was the attempt to abandon the Common Consciousness and establish his individuality separate and apart from the Communal Mind. We further find that the subject is in full possession of his legal faculties and capable of understanding the criminal nature of his acts, and, perhaps most tragically, that he fails to see the enormity of his crime.” The Chief Justice faltered slightly, delivering the final words of the Court’s sentence with a slight tremor in his voice. After stopping a moment to compose himself as his learned colleagues looked on impassively, he continued. “It is, therefore, the judgment of this Court that you will forever remain disconnected from the nets from this day forward.”

Upon hearing the Judge’s words the prisoner’s eyes opened wider, attempting to digest their import. Could it be? Might he finally be allowed the what he believed to be his unalienable right to be an individual for the first time in his life? The opportunity to live in a world in which he could have original thoughts, genuine emotions, privacy and the opportunity to be different from everyone else? The joy he felt nearly made him faint with relief and unbridled joy, allowing him for the first time in his life the possibility of hope as tears welled in his eyes.

He found he could not speak, could not express even the simple words “thank you” to the Court. It was as though he were emerging from a life-long nightmare, as if. . .

“The prisoner’s IP address, 999.999.999.999, shall be erased from the Nets,” the Judge continued as the prisoner’s tears now flowed freely. “His existence shall be forever stricken from the Collective Consciousness lest it germinate there and once again grow sedition in our midst.” The prisoner wept openly now while smiling broadly.
“The death sentence for this most heinous of crimes is hereby commuted so that the prisoner may be allowed the individuality he craves for the rest of his natural life, devoid of the comfort of our collective humanity or the distracting influences of life.”

The Chief Judge then paused and took a deep breath, as the prisoner shuddered with relief. He then continued in a slow, resonant voice. “It is further ordered by this Court that the prisoner shall have his eyes, eardrums, tongue and olfactory organs surgically removed that he may not taste, smell, see, hear, or speak with any other human being for the rest of his natural life. Thereafter, he is remanded to a hospital where he shall be restrained to a bed and tended to by robotic life support aids that he may be denied the comfort of feeling another human beings warm touch upon his skin. The sentence of this Court shall be carried out immediately and shall be witnessed by all the citizens of Earth as partial reparation for this most heinous of crimes against humanity.”

The prisoner’s screams lasted only a few moments as an anesthetic was administered and the cameras were re-arranged in preparation for justice to be carried out.

(C) 2011, 2019 Victor D. Lopez - All rights reserved.

The non-planet, poor Pluto,
Circling far out and forgotten,
I cast my thoughts around you,
Knowing you are like many here,
Too insignificant to be noticed,
And yet, still worthwhile, for sure.

I caress the cold of Neptune,
Her super speed winds whip by,
She has no thought for me, too busy,
As is her sister, Uranus, circling,
Unaware that I, or others, even exist,
Yet, we are made of the same stuff,
Stardust, so exotic, so varied; so us.

My thoughts come leaping back,
Arcing around the rings of Saturn,
Slipping between sparkling icy dust,
Navigating the dark reaching fingers,
Stretching impassively from their host,
Guiding my eye to the little moons,
Knowing that life might thrive there.

I somersault away to King Jupiter,
He used to wander, he battled hard,
Casting out the rogue gas giant,
Clearing the way for the rocky worlds,
Giving life to us all, before drifting back,
Cajoled by Saturn, his anger still rages,
The red spot storm churning, his moons,
Observing, as Jupiter takes on all comers.

And we, the rocky four, so grateful,
As Jupiter snaffles the debris, holds it,
Or hurls it away, so we live, we learn,
Our inner sisters too hot, brother Mars,
Too cold, for now, but one day, yes,
As we begin to bake, Mars awaits,
To welcome us for a million years, or so,
A blink of an eye, universally speaking,
But home has hope, hope offers life,
Unlike our unwanted distant cousin,
The non-planet, poor Pluto.

©Paul M Chafer 2015

The mountain sat impassively, daring
Asking no questions
Just waiting for the moment
The slip of unconquered glory
Death, or worse, permanent injury
You took my legs old friend
I hold no malice
Probably love you more
I’ll be getting my new ones soon
Walking in no time they say
But walking is no good to people like us
It’s the intimacy
We are one
I promise to be gentle
If I make it, I won’t gloat
If not, we stay friends forever.

Angels watching over you
And I
I am nothing but a blank stare
Amused
Knowing that you are everything
a man could ask for
Knowing that I
will be the one who breaks you


Hardheartedly I applause
At my own misleading specious

Chasing a mirage impassively
In the distance where
no sane man laid eyes
I am looking for a being
Less astonishing than you
looking to feed my ever lasting lust

Insipidness is consuming me
or maybe intense devotion

I feel
away from my nature
the barest animalistic side of me

and you
you are judging me with those humane eyes

This clock smokes a cigarette
     that tucks itself into my nest of a jaw
          acting as a memento of my most cherished flaw.
I can hear Fool's Paradise calling to me;
     it's hollow promises idle above me until I fail to remember
          whether this is a wedding or a funeral releasing it's doves to me.
You're a modern desolate suicide
     with your insides filled with fearful and uneasy pesticides.

I'm too exhausted to lose it.
     and too inferior to choose it.
and the restless clock stays awake impassively with your ballad
     like a phantom of my pallid heart which feels eternally invalid.
I pace past pit stops but I never eat
     when I've lasted this long already.
You're a modern romantic suicide
     with a heart that has hung itself out to dry.

Sometimes my heartbreak brakes,
     snarling as it painstakingly falters like the moon at daybreak;
          stumbling across a canvas to its haunted nest
               and sleeping beneath these ten-thousand lakes.  
I won't let the shine blast my shade.
I won't let the darkness begin to fade.
I won't let the sparkle ride my mind.
You're so rustic and piously unkind.

Paramour, you're not abandoned yet.
You're scrutinizing yourself and you're far too unfair.
You've got your crown all tangled up
     and I wish I could make you care.

No Paramour, you haven't been abandoned yet.
It doesn't matter all you've endured.
It doesn't matter all you've observed;
     sentimental daggers still seem to lacerate your brain.
I've acquired my fair share of knives,
     I'll guide you through the pain.
You're not abandoned.

So abandon me when you're not alone.
Let's abandon me so you're not alone.
Give me your fists because you're staggering.
Let me hold you still because you're staggering.

Welcome to the party
welcome to the show
this is for the tired beauties
promenading the watering hole
searching for another
stand in for the night
back in the darkest corners
where they lose their fight

And when the sun goes down
the feelings start to stir
another chance to redeem yourself
have you really found your cure
loneliness and desperation led you to this place
stuck in a world
where deceit is common place

Take a look in the mirror
tell me what do you see
are you proud of what looks back now
who you want it to be
wasted days and nights go by
soon turn to years
hopeful dreams and pleasantries
vanish into tears

Standing at the crossroads
of life uncertainly
past choices and decisions
stare back impassively
nothing comes easy in this life it seems
is all what appears to be

Am I the girl with the shiny curls
All tangled and unaware?
Of the real world I reign
With no inhibitions
Only love and what feels right

Doesn’t she feel like she’s flying?
Like she’s floating,  like there’s no wind
To resist the pain of feeling
What this world has to give

She thinks she knows this world
All is light, just light that sweeps her cheeks
Flushed pink with youth
All is wind, just gusts
That brush her hair for her
All is effortless, effortlessly
Beginning and ending
And beginning again
Does she wonder about the rest?
Aspiring to slip through to find what lies ahead
Yes
But ask if she’s knows of the real hurt
And she’d confidently utter
The truth she thought she knew

We are taught by the trusted,
Swept under their wings,
Atop their earth
It is bliss and nothing else is known,
All else is shielded
With armor of might and mail

So I go one day
After the wing is lifted
And this world, this world of mine
This world of mine I thought I knew
Is not that world at all
Dancing past swinging doors
With air that forces her,
She turns but there’s no turning back
The doors have been closed on the past
She accepts the truth of fleeting youth
And letting down her hair
Shoes of pink satin are now deeply rooted
But not in ground of fertile touch
But in piles of unstable sands

Sinking, falling no!
Please let her out

“I’m okay, I’m surviving,”
She utters the words through someone else’s tongue
They roll past her teeth falsely

Walk impassively, she thinks
Kiss the breath of the ******
But why?

Why walk being led by unfamiliar feet?
Why run past a group of truth?
Why wish for what’s not truly wished?
Why not listen?
Why not listen to your own cherubic voice,
Innocent pitch and sweet intentions
Why not trust?
Use the trust that’s kindly offered often
Why tangle in senseless strings?
It’s petty and lacks virtue
Why?

Because she’s alive
We’re alive and we live and we die
And travels prove arduous

And she’s little
In a little body, little is contained
Little wants to be contained

Growth
Growth in a body brings growth to the mind,
Seeps up the spine and I know

So it takes some time
To fill the mind
And time also carries pain
All in all, you can’t just call the name
It calls you, it reckons you
And it stabs you till you’re almost
At your end
But it’s funny
It never quite hurts you enough
To knock you down completely
It rests inside

So now she stands tall
Stoic like the Chief that’s
In my blood

Wrapped in that petticoat
With polka dots and
A pair of red shoes

It took some time, granted
Tumbling a bit every moment
Standing up

Regret?
Yeah
She peers through the window
That cannot be shattered
To stop; omit all
Try, she tries and tries but

She can’t
She amazes herself though
Every time those strings are strummed
Or every time her senses are numbed
From all the petty rest

She knows a lot,
But not at all
But what beauty lies
In the potential
To bring herself up
Just to fall again and again
Every fall holds strength
To begin all over

This clock smokes a cigarette and tucks itself into the nest hidden inside of my jaw made from the sticks in my eyes and the branches in my brain. They act as a memento of all of my cherished and celebrated flaws. You know, the ones that to everyone else seem deep and emotional and artistic and cool, but to me seem just seem clinically insane. These branches are pawns from Fool’s Paradise calling to me—I can see them floating idly above my head like tiny taunting yellow birds from my memories. They try to make me forget whether this is a wedding or a funeral releasing these doves from my nest into my heart. They flap their wings in my chest monotonously and obnoxiously; a tireless taunting heartbeat. You’re a modern desolate suicide with your heart filled with fearful and uneasy pesticides, poisoning all of my beautiful birds of Fool’s Paradise.

They’re teaching me to fly now, making me too exhausted to even lose it anymore, and too exhausted to think I can choose it. (“It” being the toxins making me dizzy and Ms. “Miss Me Please”. Pathetic.) This restless clock stays awake and is impassively beating a tragic ballad like a phantom of my pallid heart which silently screams. It’s foolish and hushed and timidly invalid. The rhythm paces past pit stops searching for the sound of silence but never stops to eat or for a pick-me-up when it’s lasted this long already. You’re a modern romantic suicide wringing out my heart with your rigid hands and hanging it out to dry.
Sometimes my heartbreak will abruptly brake and snarl at me like a moon exhausted at daybreak refusing to hold itself up for the world anymore. It’s as if it trips and stumbles across its own canvas in the sky, collapsing into my nest weighing me down into the deepest of these one-hundred thousand lakes of solitude, making me a drowning anchor at best, bringing the whole **** ship and crew down with me. It’s as if your shiny poisonous soul blasts my shaded nest with lasers from a science-fiction fantasy with all robots and no magic, and the necessary darkness needed for dreams begins to fade. Your sparkle is surfing and effortlessly riding the tsunami of my mind, unaware of the sharks with razor teeth made of my pathetic emotions. How are you so charming and rustic, and yet so piously unkind?

And I could tell you that you’re not alone yet, but you would never believe me. And I could tell  you you’re far too ******* yourself and too ******* me and too ******* us and the catastrophic hurricane we’d be lucky to be, but you would never want to believe me. I could tell you that you’ve got your heavy crown all tangled up in your hair filled with twigs and branches but I won’t because I know you won’t dare to care.

But it’s true, you’re not alone yet. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through or who you’ve been through or anything we’ve been through . It doesn’t matter what you’ve seen or who you’ve seen, these sentimental knives still seem to lacerate your brain, I know they have. I’ve acquired my fair share of daggers—please let me guide you through the pain or at least pretend to if you’ll let me. You’re not alone, although I know you wish you were. I’m sorry.

So leave me be when you’re not alone. Let’s both abandon me together so you can be alone. Give me your hands because you’re staggering on this uneven floor. Let me hold your struggling heart still because it’s beat is staggering. Let me be alone with you because you’re staggering… but I’m a chore.

Sometimes I feel like there is a balloon inside of my heart that is deliberately deflating to a point where my skin can’t stretch far enough to protect it anymore. Sometimes I feel like there a minuscule puncture in my heart that is so small that nobody can even see it. I wonder if I’m the growing void, or if the void is growing inside of me.

The delusion of you lurks in the corners of my brain and I’m so ashamed about it. It’s like you sleep in the underbelly of my eyelids that keep leaking because there is no more room for them without you living in there. It’s as if you made a puncture in my eyes so small that nobody can see it but they can see the streams that used to snuggle up in there.

You make me feel like I’m a speck of ******* that gets left behind on a dollar bill and spent on a pack of gum.

Behind Sister Bridget's
black habited back
one legged Anne

gave her a one fingered
up you sign
the nun unaware

walked on down
the lush green lawn
the girl with burn scars

on her arm and leg
mouthed
I'm going to tell

but her wide eyed stare
betrayed
she never would

just a maybe
-if-I-had-the-nerve
gesture

hey Skinny kid
Anne said
in lowered voice

hand to the side
of her mouth
as she'd seen spies do

in war films
or on TV
how about we sneak

into town?
the Kid impassively
shrugged

his narrow shoulders
buy you some sweet
if you'll come?

that decided it
and he nodded
and as the nun

walked down the lawn
chatting to the other kids
who were convalescing

from sicknesses
or burns or accidents
Anne and the Kid

sneaked off back
towards the big house
now a nursing home

for children
she on her crutches
he following behind

looking back
towards the lawn
and once inside

they ventured out
the side door
along the path

by the hedge
and down the side road
that led into town

pass traffic
she crutched along
the Kid bringing up

the rear
her one leg treading
the paving

the stump swinging
silently
beneath her skirt

and the Kid
catching her up
walked beside her

and she said
got to get out
of that **** place

with all those
other kids
and those holy nuns

with their tall tales
and frustrated dreams
the Kid said nothing

he was thinking
of the night
she wanted him

to scrub her back
in the bath
or that other time

when he helped her
from her wheelchair
and accidentally

touched her tight ****
by mistake
and the WHAT THE ****

of her words
and the secret feel
had him wandering

outside
his safety zone
like a child at night

finding themselves
in the dark
all alone.

alone, and cold, and wanting
nothing more than to wrap my arms around you
and feel your little body against mine
open and trusting, soft and hot
with your loud rasping breathing in my ear
moving the hair on my neck
and your chubby arms squeezing my shoulders
as your tiny clammy hands play with the back of my shirt
and you listen impassively
and think about birds, or lunch, or that you need to go *****
while I tell you in the softest tones I can
that everything will be alright
and that I love you very much
and that I cried when I wrote this.

there is a monster in me
roaring and clawing itself free
my lifes only responsibility
is to keep it caged indefinitely
confrontation comes inevitably
self destruction isnt all it seems
flight is an impossibility
to a man fighting his own insanity
in all the dark places ive been
the same dark faces look on impassively
waiting to tear a mouthful of meat
from the bones of whats left of my psyche
but with no fight left in me
no life to succour
ive been picked clean
my fear is for those around me
when the beast sheds its chains
and the dark faces are revealed as my reality

The morning sunrise,
A bright new day.
My existence, once again real.

As I rise to my feet;
grasping for energy.
No time to weep.

The shadows of night,
Still weighs upon me.
My patterns of thought,
Erratic and free.
I try to move on,
And even harder to forget.

The emptiness of slumber,
Now overflowing with reality.
The quiet bliss of inexistence,
Is once again behind me.
The harmony of night,
fades away with the dwindling moonlight.

In the depths of my mind,
the painful reminders prevail.
While my eyes remain ever dry,
Emotionless,
I shake and quiver.
As my tears of sorrow
Slowly stream down from within.
A feeling of anguish,
Engulfing a broken heart.

A single moment of weakness,
Too scared to hold on.
Too painful to let go.
My wish to vanish in darkness,
A realm to dwell in impassively.

Through darkness,
As in light.
My shadowed thoughts
Of a life once loved,
They follow me.
Never to be forgotten!
Never to be re lived!

I'm like a vacuous worm laying in bed
Squirming uncomfortably.
Watching myself impassively rot
from the inside out.
My books are collecting dust of life's are no longer live.
My chairs accumulating clothes of personalities I no longer wear.
I'm holding my unresponsive eyes in my hands, I feel blind, I can't see my wood floors.
It's covered in inscrutable ideas, on blank pages, ripped out of my notebook.
Ink spills but nothing's written
Inspirations, emotions, and feelings are lost somewhere within the air.
But I can't inhale the oxygen they contain.
My eyes try to peer a view of the world
through ***** curtain cracks.
Im tired of staring at the ceiling.
I turn my head left to stare at the chipped painted walls.
Simple words splattered in color crow black of all the humanly advice I've ever heard.
Yet it doesn't resonate inside of me.
I turn my head right to stare at the wall peeling like my thoughts trying to crawl out of my brain.
It's funny,
how vacant this room feels;ghost memories fill the emptiness inside this empty space.
when I have everything I ever wanted to make me feel alive Inside here, or so I thought?
She said
"Where lies the beauty in being buried alive"
And I responded
"I don't belong here anymore"
Struggling to keep myself intact
like my fingernails being bend back till they snap.
As I watch a detritus love deteriorate, in a gradually decomposing disintegrating way, and perish like it never existed in the first place.
Like trying to constantly feed life into the lifeless with any kind of progress.
My teeth are corroding from all the words stuck in my mouth
I fell off my bed, crawling on top of  wordless pages.
Dragging myself across what seems to feel like a hollow abyss, with a floor made out of hands filled with thorns.
Trying to find peace inside the hollow selfishness of my psychotic Self implanted misery.
And through my rebirth of dead departures of selves
I found God in myself....

It is decommissioned, off-limits, outright verboten,
Yet is traversed nonetheless,
Its patrons a mix of the pruriently curious,
The thrill-seeker, the merely woebegone.
As they have time on their side,
The hub-bub of school buses and suburban commuters
No concern as they navigate the buckled and broken asphalt
(The conflagration underneath changing the topography
Daily, sometimes even hourly)
They will stop to paint some phrase, some bon mot
On this roadway-***-canvas:
Mostly the narcissistic monologue we bray at the universe,
The assertion that we were here, are here,
And (though it is plaintive yet unspoken) that we always may be,
Augmented with light hearted double entendres
And grim, hectoring Biblical quotations,
While not far away, the re-directed two lanes of blacktop
Carry onward, indifferently proceeding on its way
Through these stolidly scruffy old anthracite towns,
Their landscapes and the ground beneath them
Quiet as the sepulcher, the vagaries of their fates above the sod,
Stalking them impassively yet implacably.

I don't need to think about love
Somehow it seems it's not meant to be
At least not for me
But there are nights that I still dream
Involuntary
Of someone there to hold me
Of a feeling like comfort or security
And from these dreams I wake
With such foolish tears
Drying on my tired face

Can I be blamed?
For wanting what others have
For grieving the loss of love I've never known

Just an errant thought, of course
I know better than to wish on stars
That shine on us, impassively
And maybe it's true
That I've known too much of hate
To ever offer love to you

But maybe...
But maybe.

And it's like that
That I wonder what more life could be
Without this vague aching
Without this empty part of me

Something I've only felt in my dreams
Just as beautiful and perfect
As it is impossible and fleeting
Or so it always seems

Before
the last few seconds of their culmination
on the back seat of small blue car
His lips played on her naked *****
"Do you feel what I feel?"
she murmured.
He said nothing.
Her hands went along his waist.
Belt
Buttons
COLD...
at once
he stopped.
"it should be so"
She watched his brown eyes flickering for her.
"Do you love me ?"
The words came out of his ****** mouth.
In a thin smile, she kissed him again.
Warmly.....
Impassively....
Her fingertips began to move around his body
Memories
Sufferings
Rejections....
For a moment their eyes met
Their sighs  met.
"Why are you crying?"
A drop sweat ran down his nose
and fell on her cheek.
She smiled more than before.
"I'm crying for you"
At the same time,
Their obscure worlds merged together.

It was late April, or perhaps early May
At the Home for Blind Children
(This was all some time ago,
When one's infirmities were spelled out quite bluntly)
And the children, being set loose
In the resolute glow of the maybe-Spring-is-here sunshine,
Were playing baseball on a diamond-ish field
Wrestled from the goldenrod and crownvetch
Through eminent domain.
Oh, the ball was large, and beeped away like Sputnik,
But it was clearly the game of Cobb and Ruth and Mantle
Just the same, the proceedings ambling on as per usual,
The kids at the plate fixing on the wobbly, blaring orb
Just in time to nick it with their bats
And, with proper and judicious direction,
Traipse around the bases in accordance with the law
As laid down by Abner Doubleday himself.
One of the children, however, inexplicably locked onto the ball
From the moment it left the pitcher's hand,
Driving it in a high arc past the fielders
And over the chain-link boundary
Which had been put up for the Little League teams
A couple of years ago.
Strangely enough, both sighted spotters
Had picked that exact moment to be miles away
From the action taking place on the field,
Perhaps distracted by an unusual bird song,
Possibly formulating plans for their day off,
Maybe even contemplating love yet to be
(It was Spring, after all)
And thus never saw the flight of the ball
As it took flight toward its unlikely landing place.
They spent the remainder of the afternoon,
The sightless and those with varying degrees of vision,
In a fruitless search in the high grass at the edge of the field
And just outside of the foul lines,
Never imagining to look outside of the fence,
As all the while a small herd of cows in an adjacent field
Stared at them impassively,
Occasionally pausing to nibble on the patchy grass and clover
In the exact spots they had grazed the day before