Somebody has to do it:
be the adversary in this system of adversary law.
Until proven guilty, persons are presumed innocent.
Sometimes, they are.
Rights. Right out of the Bill of Ditto.
Pays for Mercedes auto, shoes by Bally, ex's alimony, Giorgio Armani suits,
cravats.
Sounds a bit cynical?
You think I'm in it for the money, Honey?
You asked if I was acting--
You nicely put it, poet,
"Theatricality----Illusion and Reality----
Theater of the Real," et cet.
Juries are tough critics
with their free tickets,
sitting in their box like Roman royals at the Coliseum.
It's the greatest show in town.
Give 'em some dramatics, tragics, comedics, histrionics.
Thumbs up. Thumbs down.
Always the advocate.
In their shoes.
Always the advocate.
In their underwear.
Shaving, I look in the mirror,
or Yoga-like, contemplate my navel,
affectionately pat the youthfully flat plane of my abdomen.
(I ration cholesterol, play racquetball,
and notwithstanding that my hair is gone--
evidence of elevated testosterone--
seem to be attractive to women.)
I suppose I've given the impression of a degree of vanity,
that I love myself a bit.
Verifiably, verifiably. But,
who am I? Who am I?
Who is he? Who is he?
Now, that's a good question, Sonny.
A number of possibilities might be considered
concerning who speaks this way, and why.
After all, he's only the Author's creation,
a so-called persona in a work of fiction.
You see the Advocate as protagonist.
You identify with him,
sympathize with his agonies.
The words are his.
But the poem is artifice
in which the Author invented a character, in res,
a lawyer,
not quite stitched from whole cloth, but based on
an acquaintance,
who, so far as the author knows, doesn't own an Italian suit
nor does he look in the mirror, saying,
"Who am I? Who am I?
Who who who--o--oo?"
But he might. But he might.
To write about the Advocate,
the Author has to know his mind.
He has to get into his shoes,
into his skin,
under his polished cranium.
He has to become him
Then he, the Author,
standing in front of the mirror
(contemplating his protuberant tum),
thinking about his poem
immersed in the person of the Other Guy,
asks the face; that is,
the lathered face he sees in glass,
"Who is 'I'? Who is 'I' "?