[Newspoetry] Names as Poetic Footnotes

[Donald L Emerick]

Names as Poetic Footnotes opposes
<Self->Defenses of Insanity Pleas(es)

<As a Shakespeare Identity question
Was conjurably definitively heard
Before a noted Panel of Judges (Q.V.),
This, too, would be a case at law --
But what kind of law hopes to judge
The underlying issues dis*re*puted?
Criminal law would be too tough;
Civil law would be much too kind.
Those two make one kind of law.
Every kind of law has two faces,
Even, or oddly, tragic comedy.>

For the Prosecution:
"Lady, two white tigers
Appeared en horizon,
Approached me unfeared.
One rolled out its tongue,
Licked my stretched hand
Like some Calico Cat,
While second shreds my arm,
So blood flows and then pools,
Into hand's waiting cup.
Merely this and nothing --
Stroke, feed, feel -- nevermore."

And now comes the Defense:
"All poems meter out
Footnotes recursively.
Said metric reductions
"Aha!" interruptions
That move our thoughts away