Pay back, Jack! August 29, 2008

 

Glassy-eyed and shivering,

Jack sat in the dock.

His hands were clasped and quivering.

His knees began to knock.

The Judge said: “Jack, you’ve been accused

of murdering the giant.

I tell you, we are not amused!”

But Jack looked up, defiant,

and cried: “but it was self defence,

a matter of survival.

It didn’t make a bit of sense

to wait for his arrival.

For he was big and fierce, you see,

with murder in his eyes.

He would have made a meal of me.

He simply had to die.

And so I took the axe and chopped

the beanstalk clean in two.

He shouted “No!” and then he dropped.

You’d do the same thing too,

if someone said they’d grind your bones

to bake themselves some bread.

I didn’t have a sling and stone

so used an axe instead.”

“Goliath came,” the Judge replied,

“attacking David’s clan.

He came to kill and so he died.

He was an awful man.

But you crept in the giant’s den

to steal his sacks of gold

and then went back to take his hen

which laid gold eggs, I’m told.

And so, I say, you’re just a thief.

The giant can’t be blamed.

Your crimes are quite beyond belief.

You ought to be ashamed.

And so I give you thirty years.

To prison you must go!”

Jack’s eyes sprang salty, selfish tears.

He shook from head to toe.

So Jack was taken to his cell.

He’s still there, breaking rocks.

The judge declared: “that went quite well.

Now bring me Goldilocks!”

Paul Hughes 2008