The Court Machine

Rightwiseness, the Old English
Translated Latin justice,
More or less. To be upright,

Equitable, impartial,
Fair, and moral in judgment,
And also, implicitly

To be in a position
Of power enough to judge
And to enforce that judgment.

What a strange and hopeless dream.
You know you can’t create it,
Effect it for all cases,

So you chase it case by case,
And invoke gods, The God, time
Or simple death for the rest.

Even at that, it varies
In meaning and in usage
Widely, culture by culture.

What would be justice would be
If no life had to suffer
In the first place. As for courts,

Don’t make us snort. They’re better
Than honor or anarchy,
Maybe. But justice? Really?