"legalese" poems
Sisters: my veins drain into the sand.
My grave exists on wood.
My eyes close.
The crows pick at my womb; my brain.
Each nail tattoos my blood
into my bones.
My dying started long ago;
it started in my youth,
when Teacher told us
boys pull our pigtails,
shove us down on playground pavement
to show their love.
It started in high school,
where bare shoulders blinded boys
from their books.
And now we are twenty.
Now men's fingers pull us into the dark.
Now the alley concrete burns.
Now a suit and tie
asks if his defendant
could see your breast and thigh.
One out of every three;
if we escape their claws
we do so narrowly.
If we flee when they call,
we risk the slice of a knife
or an exit wound
or an asphalt tomb.
Whistles peel at our skin,
the wolves to our moon.
My body is a temple.
I open my womb
to expel all who intrude:
wrinkled politicians with withered pens,
with legalese, God's pharmacists,
the filthy, forceful tongues of men
who chain my worth to fertility.
I drive them from my holy rooms
with whips of cords.
My body is limp on these boards.
My skin is an ossuary
for relics women will soon possess.
It is easy for me to die.
I bleed for my Chinese sisters,
slain before they speak;
for my Indian sisters,
doused with acid,
stolen while they sleep;
for my Saudi sisters,
given a warden,
kept from their own streets;
for my American sisters,
losing their bodies
to others’ strict beliefs.
I bleed, I bleed;
come, stand in the scarlet mud.
Come, bathe your feet,
wash your hands
in the dregs of my end;
come, purge unwanted seed.
Come, drink of my last breath,
women who wear veils,
women who sell ***
The crows circle,
the vultures too--
I smell of death.
I am not weak.
I will not forgive them;
they know just what they do.
Now, my slaughtered sisters.
Now, my survivors.
Set down your stones.
Take the nails from my feet,
plunder my bones.
Wear them as amulets.
In three days,
I will rise
and forge weapons from your cries.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC
That American bandana in my closet?
I stole that.
Her mom liked me and let me borrow it for our fourth of July party,
and when we were giving our stuff back I forgot it was in my room.
Then I saw it and decided, this is mine now
I don’t think I’ve worn it since.
In the eyes of the law we call this an “adverse possession”
the intent to own and keep something that isn’t yours.
I know she’d roll her eyes if she saw me putting our relationship into legalese.
That stormtrooper nutcracker?
That was a gift,
a Birthday gift,
an April Birthday gift.
Who the hell gives a Christmas present as a birthday gift?
She did.
I kept it.
And with gifts there is no “consideration”
which to lawyers means a bargain or exchange of promises,
a gift is a “I love you and want you to have this
because I like to make you happy.
But also, if we end I want you to look at this for the rest of your life
and wonder what would have happened
if we could have survived that last fight?”
You don’t get to bargain for that, you get the gift and the grief.
and she gets to know that you’re going to miss her every day.
Sometimes I wonder who the lawyer really is.
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 12:50 PM UTC
Arguably benign
Collecting dust, eventually
Forgetting...
Graciously heroic
Intrepid justification, knowing
Legalese...
Mistakenly nerdy
Or perhaps quite
Reasonably serendipitous...
Triumphantly understood
Validating wisdom
Xenial...
Yellow zealot
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 2:18 AM UTC
#*And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales:
and he received sight forthwith... [Acts 9:18*]
When judges decipher what lawyers speak,
offended defendants may leave confused.
Legalese labyrinths capture the weak;
Babylon's law makes for justice refused.
Enshrined at the ziggurat's doubtful peak
tyrannic gibberish mocks the accused.
He blinks at the courtroom, bewildered freak
as sentences are uttered unrecused.
Cuneiform marks... codified patter—
who dares define such esoteric terms;
in Heaven's eyes does it even matter ?
While the sacrificial defendant squirms,
Justice, unblinded, lifts higher the sword
unscaled eyes beholding—her gaze restored.
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 6:01 PM UTC
Trump ******* us all
but did he really?
The South followed suit on its promise
Yet the heartland had a change
We would like to say:
“He doesn’t represent America.”
But doesn’t he?
Profit above all is the capitalist credo
Racism: to divide the people and keep them disorganized
Sexism: to divide the people and keep them disorganized
Xenophobia: to divide the people and keep them disorganized
Hasn’t that always been the American way
Keep the neighbors distracted with one another
Keep the neighbors fighting one another
While you rob them blind
And their children
And their children’s children
And . . .
Trump speaks
For those that see government only as a tool for furthering business
Trump speaks
For those that were born into a position of privilege
For those that find it offensive when their privilege is pointed out
For those that can construct legalese so their privilege can never be denied
Trump speaks
For those that believe something determined by genetic or socio/politico/economico construction
Not effort of their own
Imbues them with divine right
Imbues them with heaven’s mantel
Imbues them with a destiny that is their burden to make manifest
Trump ******* us all
Trump doesn’t speak for America
Historically
Morally
Doesn’t he?
© Christopher F. Brown 2017
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 8:09 PM UTC
I know what it is I need
It has to be something I never had before
It doesn’t have to be new
It doesn’t have to be old
It isn’t famous
It isn’t anonymous
It isn’t expertise
It isn’t legalese
It only has to be
It doesn’t have to be from me
I don’t want it to be from me
Unless that is where it comes from
I want it be something that is awake
And not from a dream
Especially a dream I already had
It can be early
It can be late
There is nothing special about the time
Except that I need it now
Maybe it’s about acceptance
Or the impossibility of forgiveness
But it can’t be something I can hold
Or something I can see
It can only be something I can feel
I’ve seen enough
I’ve heard enough
It’s time for it to take shape on the inside
I’ve thought enough
I’ve cried enough
It’s time for it to show to others on the outside
What’s that you said?
Did you see that?
I just missed it
That’s where it is
In a glance
Or a sigh
Or being late
Or leftovers I forgot to eat
Or losing my train of thought
Or a fire fly
That’s where it is
The instant before it’s gone
But I only know it as leaves
I only know it as a goodbye
I only know it as heartbreak
I only know it when the song ends
I only know it when you die
There is a natural worth to regret
It’s the only way I can learn sometimes
It’s not a prophet
It’s only a recourse
But I must first recognize that it exists
Before it happens
And in the way smoke becomes clear again
Or how a spark from a flame becomes the night
I to want to transform myself into a paradox of being
Folded into the world around me
Becoming what is good about it
Becoming its strength to accept my flaws
Day after day
That is what I want
Because in the clash of opposites
I instead shall become the world
And not its conflict
Not its ego
Not its destruction
Only its soil
Only its atmosphere
Only its ocean
Only its mountain
Only its life
Nov 4, 2016
Nov 4, 2016 at 4:25 PM UTC
I didn't sign the declaration
and I didn't
after due and careful
consideration
which is legalese for,
I tossed it in the bin.
We've all seen the writing on the wall
uninformed gibberish
misspelt *******
youth!
send 'em down the mines
oh wait
Thatcher closed them,
send 'em to sea
oh wait
no fuckin' navy
and less of an army since
Napoleons days.
I turn sour
like last weeks milk
a proper grumpy cat
and
I don't like that
at all
perhaps I should take to writing
on the wall,
#Killjoy was here
May 17, 2018
May 17, 2018 at 2:40 PM UTC
A yellow notice on the gate with bold letterhead states
Noxious **** Commission and then, in smaller red print, declares:
Demand Notice to Remove Thistle.
This notice is a sudden smack behind the noggin.
Bringing attention to a purple, spiky blossom
on top of an orb wound tightly around a ball of seeds,
swaying in the breeze and heeding this question:
What did you do?
To make the County use its bureaucratic might
and declare thistle plants a blight, a public nuisance
worthy of persecution. And any resistance will cause
an appearance before a judge who'll levy
fines and imprisonment.
What did you do?
Shock begins to wane and reason filters into the brain;
this thistle, that goats devour like its a treat,
it explodes into a cotton suite that birds
use to build a soft nest and squirrels
a cozy den for all their kin.
Is this order just about the plants by the gate,
or does it include plants used by bees,
or the plants that help pollinate veggies?
Or the pretty blue thistle splashing color
in an otherwise rather dull foliage -
do those count too?
The notice drifts off into the finer print of legalese
using words like must, subject to, and other decrees
and then it ends with this call to arms - Declare War On Thistle!
But whose side am I on? And, when I am in jail,
will I get my thistle tea?
Jan 12, 2025
Jan 12, 2025 at 2:47 PM UTC