Some thoughts as the Bali conference stumbles to a conclusion.

 

Guilty

 

When they arrested me

I was pretty cocky.

They hadn't got anything on me.

I would be free in no time.

Demanding apologies

Selling my story

Sneering at the plods.

 

I was an innocent with

a blameless bourgeois life

a boring late life, life.

A quiet inoffensive life.

 

They couldn't know

that I drink

more than twenty one

units a week.

Of course not.

But then again.

I pay with my card.

I always use the same shop.

Perhaps they tracked the records.

No it couldn't be.

There are so many more drunken drunks.

They couldn't could they?

 

What if that

ancient piece of dope

in the freezer

showed up on the photo

I sent to the insurance company

when the electricity

failed and the food rotted.

I just thought I might fancy

a puff on some

special day sometime.

No they couldn't could they?

 

Well the poems are a bit cheeky,

but not really obscene.

Maybe they misunderstood.

I know I talk about death a lot,

but I don't kill people do I?

I don't tell others to kill people.

 

I know, it's that hatred thing isn't it?

Because I took the piss out of religion a bit.

It wasn't bad.

A few bits of fake Latin and the odd

giggle at crazy clerics.

Not that bad is it?

 

It was when they

started bringing in the forensic

evidence that things became darker.

My footprints were all over the crime

scene, they said

The likelihood that I was

not the guilty party was

six billion to one against.

Worse than the chances of winning

ten million on the lottery they said.

 

As they pointed out the detail,

it became ever more damning.

Florid chilblains flew from

an inadequately insulated roof.

A hard and crinkled corn

called out excessive

acceleration and braking.

The vile verruca of villainy,

broadcast wildly wasted energy.

 

No less damning than the carbon

was my water footprint.

The oozing pools of sweat

they extracted from my socks

told them of midnight sprinklers

and deep baths.

 

It was conclusive.

 

Joseph K,

biofuel unit 451

Consigned 1st. April 2084.