Your honour, I have proven that there is another set of

adding, subtracting, dividing & multiplying by zero. I have

saved Einstein’s Theory of Relativity from the clutches of

the professors. I have destroyed the Big Bang theory & shown

how the speed of light is alterable & controllable.

But my work has been plagiarized, I get no remuneration.

Nor have I been able to get a single thing published.

There is a conspiracy to deny me credit–the universities

forbid me to step through their doors–& I have had to write

an aggressive document, a "white feather" to all the Vice-

Chancellors. Their set of adding, subtracting, dividing &

multiplying by zero is wrong but they won’t admit it. Students

are required to give wrong answers to examination questions

otherwise they are failed. So they keep me suppressed as a

nonentity with the help of the media who censor my work.

As long as they maintain their error they enable me to

cause things to cease to exist & that is why I have the power to

do so. If nothing is a state of energy (which I have proven

conclusively it is) & you use my set of adding, subtracting, dividing &

multiplying by zero then the entire universe & world does

not exist. And that’s what this case is all about: to put an end to

2000 years of bad science. You have the jurisdiction to

apply the laws of mathematics & physics & order

them to install my set of adding, subtracting & multiplying

by zero in their computers. That’s all I’m asking. It’s

as simple as that.

"You must learn to forgive your wife,

get on with your life," she said.

He nodded, knew the judge was right.

But when he got home, spite

sprang back like a barbed branch.

He ransacked drawers, collected all

her bras & panties,

heaped them on the kitchen table.

For a few seconds he

fondled their smoothness between the dry skin

of his fingertips before

taking the silvery cold scissors from

the cupboard & cutting them into tiny strips.

Then he neatly laid the strips side by side

in a gift box.

At the last moment he tossed in a handful

of dead bees.

The chairperson of the anti-torture committee set a dish of peanuts on the table, served us coffee. Her cheeks were decorated with two symmetrical vertical scars. The coffee was strong & bitter. The room had steel bars on windows & door, resembled a prison cell. On one wall hung a coloured photo of John Paul the Second; beneath it a blue & white statue of the Virgin, circled by red votive candles. We thanked her for seeing us.

"The bars are protection against the police," she said, "in case you’re wondering." "Torture’s a way of life here, humans count for nothing. The last time they raided us two guards took me into a little room at the station, slapped me about, said I was giving the country a bad name, accused me of treason. Then one of them grabbed my hands & pinned them to a table while the other, unfolding a paper clip, pierced the nails all the way down to the nail bed. The pain was so terrible I felt myself fall weightless away from the world." She laid both hands on the table & splayed her fingers. We could see the tiny pinholes where the cuticles had been perforated.

As we hugged goodbye in the courtyard afterwards she appeared worried & jittery, kept glancing over her shoulder at the street.

"In this country there are no secrets," she said, "the police will be here tomorrow."

In the beginning, the prisoner drawn on

trundles, belly flapped open like a bucket

of red, entrails taken out & burned

before his eyes, hanged & divided in four,–

head & quarters at the King’s disposal. Then

the thick inch & a half rope & short drop,

stiff bald eyes & swollen tongue bulging

in their caves followed by the soft, pliable three

quarter inch rope (suitably stretched

with sacks of cement) & the science of John

Burry, the compassionate cop, with his LIST

OF TABLES (the heavier the weight, the

shorter the drop). O happy resolution!

Gone forever slow strangulation & messy

decapitation; now only the quick clean break

of dislocation, the purple flush

of pure extinction.

Today with hanging no more, the children

of this world, limber & lean, have turned

to more efficient forms of appetite: devote

all their lust to push-button wars.