Welcome back to my ongoing project, The Accidental Poetry of Michael Laws, where we make poems out of Laws’ Sunday Star-Times columns by deleting, emphasising – but never adding or even rearranging words. Click here to read more about the process (and hear my weasily reasons why I shouldn’t be sued). Once you know the rules, perhaps you’d like to make a Michael Laws poem too?
The poem below was extracted from Laws’ controversial claim that a Christchurch ‘looter’ with Aspergers deserved vigilante justice. Just don’t ask me how Paul Henry comes into it…
The Paul Henry Affair
All rubble attracts rats, physical and fatal
Metaphysical, mystical:
The Paul Henry affair.
There are always ferals; rodents exposed to the light
How nondescript and petty they seem!
For the feral demeanour of one who spends life in public
Has perplexed many observers
And agitation occurred after family argued
That he had not done something wrong;
He did not know right from wrong!
My radio audience, that great intellectual void
Started arguing sympathy: the taint is to remain!
So charitable.
And comfortable being the rat, the poor dear,
He had a compulsion to satisfy.
That compulsion, in the end, has blackened all.
Let’s mete out justice.
Found in a column titled: “A black eye for liberal bleaters”
Published on: 13/03/2011
I was unaware of the existence of Mr. Laws until recently and unfortunately, he seems to be a NZ version of Bill O’Reilly, but this is brilliant– more poetry, if you can!