Tarlton Law Library
Jamail Center for Legal Research

Testation

He was an old fashioned judge.
The kind lawyers try to avoid.
                                      -obit

I am among the onlookers; the heathen, the estranged. 
I, who had been called in from the hallway 
to start again, unable to console the terrified, 
who waited their turn like lambs 
and watched the imperious fury, 
the eager delight at sentencing, 
the harsh reality of his tumultuous trials.

We hated to work his room; 
the sham voir dire, the frenetic process, 
technical and full of minutia and dread.
Now, with the surprised widow 
and the respectful old men filing by
there is an air of triumph to it all; 
the spectacle a vindication in itself.

Then some of us took note of happenstance, 
finished up our business there 
and joined together for dinner and some wine, 
taking delight in the change of pace. 
The living spoke with the living 
and we left the dead alone.

PDPOM# 14-El Chupacabra

I talked Spanish in the house with my mom and sisters 
when we were little and I still understand it good.

My mom wears black all of the time now and cries all day, 
says its for me but it seems like all of the old ladies wear black.

School was tough, mijo.  A lot of my friends ran the streets, 
had nobody, nothing; they made their own way, they were free.

I couldn't follow in school anyway and the girls would talk 
about me in Spanish and laugh.  I felt like a fool, tonto.

At the shooting gallery fuimos Chupacabras, man; bad asses 
passiando the needle, hermanos de sangre in vacant houses.

It was a way to ignore where we were in our lives and be cool.
We didn't know what it was, man; that it would kill us all.

We didn't know what was in us when we shot up, drew the blood, 
watched the smack in the glass spike mix in and turn light.

When the dying started it didn't connect at first.  SIDA was new 
and the old heads said that the manteca was bad, that's all.

I came up HIV two years ago in jail. It hit me hard, man.
It's a secret though and I'm not supposed to tell nobody.

I thought that I would find a gig someday, a real life. 
You know; a job, a girl, money for nice clothes, maybe a car.

At least in here I get my medicine.  No place to go anyway
but the streets and my mom acts like I'm already dead.

Richard Bank was born in Philadelphia, graduated from Villanova Law School in 1968 and took up the practice of law, first in general practice and then, in 1972, with the public defender's office. He resumed private practice in 1979, and in 1982 returned to the public defender's office to try major felony cases. Bank has presented Continuing Legal Education courses on jury techniques and teaches trial advocacy at Villanova Law School as an adjunct professor. His poetry has appeared in numerous small press poetry journals and he reads his poetry at the Mad Poets Society and other venues.
"Testation" appears online, at "Hearsay, Poetry Written by Lawyers" <lawyerpoetry.com>, a website maintained by another lawyer/poet, Lillian Kennedy.