Uploaded October 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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EIGHTEENTH – LEGAL JOKER

By P B Taylor

I

There is no real dividing enormous departure
From classical literature and the Law
Writing that expected novel or exploiting drama
That talent of yours assured possibly for generations more

Your act is out of a lively vibrant dialogue
Probably both in the court and in the plays
Uncovering inconvenient facts around the legal fog
Delving into intellect from many experienced days

Of all those subtle one-act plays and special scenes
Ever entertaining with the awkward attempt to question
Our conservative values to an audience which has never been
That accustomed to your wit and spontaneous reaction

You had that legal style literary strength of today
Of modern plays where the quality tends to fall away

II

An artistic expression in some ways so distasteful
As of Dickens himself or a pseudo modern stage
Combining trendy freedoms in dissenting wonderful
Always expansive prose to shock a cautious middle age

You strongly advocate a control of permissiveness
With a false sense of shaky self-discipline
Plus, an instability floating an answer to success
Which a duty gives but what of morals or a sin?

That steady intellect an outlook of confidence
Appealing a direct astuteness and steady thought
Adding the seal of your special writing importance
That valuable contribution to theatre and tv of sorts

A carved place which you filled in our law society
As leading counsel, a writer with tremendous variety

JM Harrogate September 1973