0311 Eternal Justice Poem by Michael Shepherd

I was just staggering in the gate
with two heavy bags
from an exhausting week’s conference
when the conman and his accomplice
got me right at my own front door –
I’m mortified by the memory –

they could replace my missing roof tiles
in a moment, look, the ladder’s
already up there, the accomplice
is halfway up, now he’s already
on the roof in his plimsolls, now he's
shaking the chimney-stack, look, it's loose
.... no cash? oh,
they’d drive me to the nearest cash-point…
well, you can guess the rest –
anything for a quiet life…

as I dozed off that evening,
flushed with anger, blushed with stupidity,
too tired to crawl to bed,
realizing that conmen have
all the skills of hypnotists,
enlightenment struck:

the next morning, I would wake up
150 dollars the poorer but morning-fresh;
‘they’ would wake up with the urgent need
to seek another mug each day.

And I realised that sublime, ruthless,
beautiful, tragic, comic, eternal justice
is - to be – to live it through as -
just as we are; right now…

heroes or victims of ourself



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