Colossal Miscarriage Of Justice Poem by Chinedu Dike

Kind face contorted by torture of severe whipping,
His body a mass of torn bleeding tissue.
Cruelty stretched beyond limits of endurance,
scouring was halted on the brink of death.
Numb hands unshackled from post,  
He collapsed on a stone pavement.

'Crucify Him! Crucify Him! ' Jarred the frenzied pack.
Paroxysms of rage that would pull down the fortress
of Justice. Roughly, He's brought back to consciousness. 
Wrenching pain sent features convulsing in humiliation
as the smitten Crown Of Thorns pierced His scalp.
The mocking crowd ridiculed: 'Hail, king of the Jews! '

Surfeited with demeaning mimicry in midday heat,  
the Cross Of Shame they hoisted on sagged shoulders.
In loneliness of anguish, His staggering courage
acquiesced to the summon by the looming fate.
In the mob's rain of spit and spittle, He tottered away.
A trail of His blood traced the route to Golgotha.

Nailed to the cross on Mount Calvary, loin cloth
He wore flanked by a duo on death row.
Parched with thirst, a sour blend was offered.
Looking down at by then jubilant crowd, He prayed:
'Father, forgive them they don't know what they're doing.'
'He is calling for Elijah, ' they joked, wickedly amused.

Human barbarity too much to bear, with last gasp
of breath, He wailed: 'Eloi! Eloi! Leman Sabachthan? '
A shriek of the doomed that rent the skies.
'It is finished! ' Then gently came the words:  
'Father, into Thy hands I place my spirit.'
Head bowed, in utter agony He succumbed to injuries.

His prosecution: a blatant perversion of legal rules,
in a hasty nocturnal trials that snubbed burden-of-proof;
which had no room for witnesses for the accused.
A criminal action preceded by the unlawful arrest
He endured with savage beating and manhandling,
even though no resistance was offered nor expected.

Unfairly found guilty of His assertion of the messiahship
under the Mosaic Law; thereafter, He's arraigned before
a Roman blood-court on a claim to kingship of the Jews.
Hellbent on having Him put to death, the initial charge
of blasphemy was amended to sedition against Rome.
Thus, the religious was translated into a political charge.

Declared righteous by the one that betrayed Him;
what's more, He's adjudged innocent by the prefect —
a vacillating judge unruly eclipsed by the incited mob,
at whose behest capital punishment was handed down.
A travesty that shifted a villain's infamy to the Nazarene,
while freedom of the damned became lot of the freed.

On no occasion had he robbed nor cheated any one.
An upright gent he was with a lifetime of clean record,
who became target for lynching — in a plot hatched
by Jewish leaders perturbed about His gospel
and rising popularity through mesmerizing miracles.
His Brutal Execution: A Colossal Miscarriage Of Justice.