The Independent today reports on the killing, the family seem to be arguing assassination, of Mark Saunders. Saunders was a successful and well to do Barrister. He lived in Chelsea, a two million pound flat. Of course anyone who watches films or television drama about the Police will realise that they don’t like lawyers. Lawyers are scum, worse than the criminals that they represent. The only reason criminals escape justice is because of tricky lawyers, or crap juries who are dim-witted and lazy. Nothing to do with the “criminal” being innocent or the prosecution evidence (gathered by the police) being useless. The idea that Police “fit up” villains is a good one, human rights are for nerds and courts are a damned nuisance. These are the usual themes of anti-lawyer police dramas. Rarely do we see the routine corruption that permeates the police, nor the racism, bigotry and routine violence. Of course not all police officers are like that. But many are. There has not been a prosecution of a police officer for murder in the cells ever. There will not be either. The Krays were given tariffs of thirty years. The survivor, I forget if it was Ronnie or Reggie became a political prisoner once his tariff had passed. Harry Roberts, the friend of every football hooligan from the seventies, is a political prisoner. Both because the police opposed their release.

The latest case to collapse and embarrass the prosecuting authorities was the prosecution of those terrorists. In the Telegraph a view was expressed to the effect that the jury were stupid and biased for acquitting the “liquid bombers”. Conveniently forgetting that they convicted some of murder in the same trial. The only folk who heard every word of the evidence were the jury, the lawyers and the judge. They clearly gave the matter much thought.

It is this dangerous “Dirty Harry” point of view that undermines respect for the law across the whole of society. People are not stupid. The police hate lawyers, nine of them shot one called Mark Saunders, who also happened to be rich. He posed no threat, other than as a lawyer. The officers who killed him are allowed to compare notes and get their stories straight. The family, who are challenging this process, are in a position to take them on. There are many dead men who have died violently in the custody of the police who did not have such relatives.

Predictably the Police spin against the grieving family. The only reason, they say, there will not be any prosecutions is because the family are “prejudicing” the case by challenging them. What? Not likely. The chances of the killers being brought to book is zero.

In Lancaster, here in Lancashire, a man who reversed over a four year old child at high speed, and then went over him again going forwards, got out of his car to have a look. He saw what he’d done and ran away with an accomplice. In that case the villain was charged with careless driving. The child was from a background that could be described as economically challenged, working class in other words. Saunders is upper class.

Who said the class war is over?

I personally wish Saunders’ family luck. But they need to watch their backs carefully. The police in the Uk have no respect for the law and get away with it every time.

Check it out here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/exclusions/books/poetry/nosplit/poetry.xml

Ted

Quark stood with shoulders broken
like cracked paving slabs, crumbling.
He twitched and wobbled with worry,
sweating with strife.The crowd’s surge like a river of mud,
smelling of rot and disease.
Quark stood amongst the midden,
shifty looking, eyes darting like swallows
or the flick of a Tiger’s tail.
He mouthed a word; a deaf mute’s mewl:“Quark”

People swarmed around him,
blank-eyed and symbiotic,
grey and lightly rusted –
reminding Quark of tanks in World War I,
or the Spanish Civil War.

In squeezing heat, sweat drizzled his face,
it stung Quark’s eyes. Eyes that reflected the streets
of glass and dirt: hard, sharp and smelling peopled.
The pigeons vanished, like steam in freezing air.

A frog eating a fly: Quark licked his lips,
He looked closely, scrutinising every aspect: hoping
for a perfect being. Quark inspects and considers,

wrapped in the fur of the eyeless horde,
reminiscent of silent canaries
in a brass-barred cage.

Quark runs.

Dodging the onslaught, he eyed it,
hovering above the greyness and flesh,
eyes of glowing obsidian. Reflected by windows
Quark’s head tilts,

                            he studied it;
inspecting for damage. The crowd grew soundless and solid.Satisfied — Quark approached — stuttering the special word:
a wicked muttering of faith and patience–
a word spoken with a crow’s caw:

“Quark”

Open-faced, striding through the rush;
palms up cawing at the crowd’s crush;
the city cramped, like a centipede’s pincers,
squeezing the thoughts of Quark.The perfect being hovered there. Above the stone towers.
A floating presence of faith-smog. Above the racket. He saw it all.

As a melon splits — Quark’s mind cleaved.
Great doors swung — the people’s eyes opened,
bookish faces spread wide, like documents.

They scrutinised Quark with reptilian blinks.
They all looked now,
hard looks,
looks of hate and envy. Crushing looks.

Through eyeglasses they squint
and saw it all
with magnification devices, drilling him out –
assessing him
for future usefulness.

Today is the Greatest Day

22/7 = Pi
Neon light bounces — on fragile bronze towers;
dazzling yellow-white light — drenching
cold sap-swollen trees, like warm honey
dripping through fragrant warm half-light
unfolding leaves and erasing the streetlight.

Seven Sticks Burnt
Rolling beneath gilded temple-spires
of commerce and traders in his Deities’ guns.
Curled, like a caterpillar, snug and cocooned
in a rug, wrapped in newspapers: a foetal-man.
Last saw his kids in ‘64. Now keeps his memories

3 of them
in a stained gabardine pocket: caresses it daily -
now curled with frayed edges. Smudges of numbers
and names on the back, remind him like half-thoughts.

–Hot light drills to the false skin –

lifting him through
layers of yellow-tint edged clouds, and a fragrance of Spring.

Falling and then
seeing them run in a circle. A circle of town-light,
the smiles ecstatic sparked him, lifting his soul
from the ledge toward a spangling firework spray

- of wonder -
Hot city sun-glare peeled away dreams
of a dazzled half-life.
Shedding his false skin of wonder:
a chrysalis crackling alive to mutate.

Ivor Griffiths 2007; Published in The South Poetry Magazine, Autumn 2007, Issue 36; Dedicated to, and inspired by thoughts of, my children: Rachel and Mark.

Remember what I said in the car?

Remember what I said?

If you don’t see me it isn’t because I don’t want to see you.

I’ve been to Court and everything.

Don’t believe anyone who says I don’t want to see you.

They’re liars.

And they are.

DAD