Justice

Herman Sutter

January 14, 2024

Justice is corruptive

corrosive

divisive.

It tolerates a membrane

of resemblance,

derives

temporal subsistence

from decay,

resists

the appearance of

sincerity.

In truth

justice is purified

by facade,

regarded

as ephemeral only

by the judge,

distinct

from the one true man

who never seeks,

only

accepts what is pressed

upon his bruise

as ice.

Herman Sutter (award-winning poet/essayist) is the author of Stations (Wiseblood Books), The World Before Grace (Wings Press), and “The Sorrowful Mystery of Racism,” St. Anthony Messenger. His work appears in: The Perch (Yale University), The Langdon Review, Benedict XVI Institute, Touchstone, i.e., The Merton Journal, as well as: Texas Poetry Calendar (2021) & By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Press, 2019). He received the 2021 Best Essay award from the CMA. His recent manuscript A Theology of Need was long-listed for the Sexton Prize.

An Appeal to the Court

Herman Sutter

January 7, 2024

to realize

what every kindergartner must learn:

that saving one thing requires

letting go of another. 

For instance:

eight perfect cookies

and nine imperfect friends;

something has to give.

Ask Clarence Thomas who

he’d vote off that island.

Each decision—you must see—

sends another into 

obscurity. Each removes 

a road sign along the way,

leaving no clear path

by which we might

return. Open your eyes 

my American friend

to the darkness we tried to light 

with smoke, and lead us home

if you can. And as you stumble

over curb or root

listen for the sound of a cookie

crumbling underfoot,

or is that the sound 

of so many ants silently rising up?

Herman Sutter (award-winning poet/essayist) is the author of Stations (Wiseblood Books), The World Before Grace (Wings Press), and “The Sorrowful Mystery of Racism,” St. Anthony Messenger. His work appears in: The Perch (Yale University), The Langdon Review, Benedict XVI Institute, Touchstone, i.e., The Merton Journal, as well as: Texas Poetry Calendar (2021) & By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Press, 2019). He received the 2021 Best Essay award from the CMA. His recent manuscript A Theology of Need was long-listed for the Sexton Prize.

What Did You Expect?

Jeffrey L. Taylor

November 12, 2023

You bragged about how beautiful
your state was. They believed you.
Death was a constant threat
where they lived, lurking around the edges
along the way. A better future beckoned.
The hostile landscapes were less threatening
than the gangs and the inhabitants
at home or on the way.

Another exodus through the desert.
Another promised land.
Whose journey do we applaud?
Where’s the beauty?

Jeffrey L. Taylor is a retired Software Engineer.  Around 1990, poems started holding his sleep hostage.  He has been published in The Perch, California Quarterly, Texas Poetry Calendar, and Texas Poetry Assignment.

Blind Justice

Kathryn Jones

October 29, 2023

Bronze goddess holds up scales 

in equal balance, sword at her side,

dispensing wisdom blindfolded.

She does not see how the scales 

have tipped, gold and power

heavier than truth or righteousness.

Perched atop the temple 

she is blind to what happens inside –

the guilty absolved, corrupt exonerated,

innocents condemned, executed,

justice twisted into a club, 

knocking Themis off her pedestal.

She lies on the ground now, 

scales crushed, sword bent,

blindfold in tatters, seeing it all now, 

face twisted in grief for justice

shattered, divine order scattered,

bronze tears soaking into dust.

Kathryn Jones is a poet, journalist, and essayist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Texas Monthly, Texas Highways, and the Texas Observer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including TexasPoetryAssignment.com, Unknotting the Line: The Poetry in Prose (Dos Gatos Press, 2023), Lone Star Poetry (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2023), and in an upcoming chapbook, An Orchid’s Guide to Life, to be published by Finishing Line Press. She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2016 and lives on a ranch near Glen Rose, Texas.

The Defense Rests

Vincent Hostak

October 15, 2023

Things were and things are.

Things weren’t. Things are not.

I just collect the evidence.

A sparrow shivers in a bristlecone pine

Or does it impersonate the host’s twisted trunk?

A hibiscus grows from a storm drain

Who judges which is the infiltrator?

Long grey pet hairs crowd a black sweater

But my only dog is white and black

They’ve clung to the wool’s ribs forever, it seems

Will all my clothes assemble a new dog?

Coral blossoms escaping a waste are

sturdier than those growing freely

A sparrow’s sleek feathers still quiver

when the bird rests from frenzy.

We’ll meet in many worlds,

But know little of each.

I just collect the evidence.

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.

I Deserve, What?

Stefan Sencerz

October 8, 2023

A meal? A bandage when I am injured?
Medicine that might help with a headache?
A fair payment for a job well done? 
An embrace by a friend? A kind hands?

I try to think that all of these 
are but gifts and offerings 
the kindness of the universe
rather than what is deserved 

Not a matter of justice 
not what is earned 
but rather the matter of 
wisdom-compassion  

Sort of like the Amida’s smile 
embracing in its gentle grace all 

It helps me be less angry 
when we do not get 
what I know for sure
we really deserve

Stefan Sencerz, born in Warsaw, Poland, came to the United States to study philosophy and Zen Buddhism. He teaches philosophy, Western and Eastern, at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. His essays appeared in professional philosophy journals (mostly in the areas of animal ethics and metaethics) and his poems and short stories appeared in literary journals. 

Stefan has been active on the spoken-word scene winning the slam-masters poetry slam in conjunction with the National Poetry Slam in Madison Wisconsin, in 2008, as well as several poetry slams in San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Chicago. 

Tell Me What Justice Is

Thomas Hemminger

October 1, 2023

Tell me, Great Thinker, what justice is. 

Tell me what justice is.

Justice is easily known with a glance,

A world where each person is given a chance, 

The space and the grace so that all may advance, 

That is what justice is. 

Tell me, Lone Mother, what justice is.

Tell me what justice is. 

Justice is having a roof and bed,

Knowing my little ones all will be fed, 

Trusting another one at what they said,

That is what justice is. 

Tell me, Dear Orphan, what justice is. 

Tell me what justice is. 

Justice is knowing you always belong,

Having some help when you need to be strong,

Feeling alright when the world feels so wrong,

That is what justice is.

Tell me, Good Neighbor, what justice is.

Tell me what justice is. 

Justice is everyone doing their part,

Treating each other like great works of art,

Loving our neighbors with all of our heart, 

That is what justice is. 

Thomas Hemminger is an elementary music teacher living in Dallas, Texas. His personal hero is Mr. Fred Rogers, the creator of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was through America’s favorite “neighbor” that Thomas learned of the importance of loving others, and of giving them their own space and grace to grow.

Justice in the Land

Milton Jordan

September 24, 2023

Somehow with little if any regard

for failure to convict or for corrupt

politicians returned to high office,

white blossoms bloom across a once arid

meadow among the juniper and sweet gum

for the land takes a longer view of justice.

The land holds a long memory of justice

and its absence carried across unnumbered 

generations and unmeasured miles of changing 

terrain and altered thoughts on just behavior.

The land holds a long promise of justice

reappearing at times and in places

as unexpectedly as rain lilies

across recently dry grassy ground.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.