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The Legal Studies Forum
Volume 30, Number 1/2 (2006) reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum Lawyers & Poets Far Travels RICHARD KRECH ________________________ Where Bangkok Came from, or Visiting the Ruins at Sukhothai Lotus blossom green algae. Turning my back to the road provides a calm invigorating vista. Sukhothai, old palace once held intrigue. The seat of power has moved on down the Chao Phraya to its mouth. To speak to the world. [389]
Vision of Ted Joans on the Other Side of the Wadi Draa By the Wadi Draa at the end of the road just outside M'Hamid the sign said "Timbuctu 2000 Km." And beyond it the endless Sahara. In Arabic it means desert. On that day in the oasis 2000 km. away Ted lives. He walks by the banks of the Niger, a wind blowing from the North makes palm trees bend to its force. The sounds of this city much like they have been for millennia.The university there is 2000 years old.The tea houses even more ancient. The cat from America reads poetry in the desert. In English it means sahara. [390]
Valerie Solanis and Enver Hoxha in Real Time at the End of the Last Century Valerie and Enver just remnants of a fin de siecle era. "We want it now!" we chanted in Selma in 1965. Still wanting it now. We look back from whatever time it is; our vantage point by definition the most current possible. Its obsolescence pre ordained like nothing else. [391]
Premeditated Deliberated & Intentional After three days the jury came back with its verdict: guilty of murder w/ special circumstances. A month later we sit here again, waiting for the penalty phase verdict. The jury not only deliberating my client's fate this time, but their own as well: will they too be guilty of murder? Premeditated murder this time. Not the rash impulsive act of a teenager but the sober calculated decision of 12 adults: a teacher, a fireman, a nurse . . . Not my client's peers by any stretch of the imagination. The prosecutor having removed all blacks from the jury over my objection and w/ the court's blessing. Will they cast the second stone? [392]
Richard Krech was born in 1946 and grew up in Berkeley, California. He started writing poetry in 1965, and in 1966 founded The Avalanche, a poetry magazine, which lasted five issues. Along with The Avalanche, Krech published several chapbooks under his Undermine Press imprint, and from 1966 to 1969 sponsored weekly poetry readings at a Telegraph Avenue bookstore in Berkeley. Krech's first poetry chapbook was published in 1967 and his poetry has appeared in various small magazines. In the mid-1970s Krech stopped writing poetry, published a collection of his existing poems-The Incompleat Works of Richard Krech-and took up the study of law. After graduating from New College of California School of Law, Krech began a criminal defense practice in Oakland in 1980 where he today continues his trial and appellate practice. In 2001, Krech took up poetry again. "Vision of Ted Joans on the Other Side of the Wadi Draa" was previously published in Shuffle Boil #4, and was included in the Ted Joans Lives Tribute, emptymirrorbooks.com. "Premeditated Deliberated & Intentional" was previously published in Van Gogh's Ear #4; "Valerie Solanis and Enver Hoxha in Real Time at the End of the Last Century" in Bathtub Gin #15. |
