Jim Wright (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meanwright) wrote2026-07-11 11:42 am
meanwright) wrote2026-07-11 11:42 am
Today, I Do Need Bluesky
This is exactly what I'd post. It is too beautiful:
Judge (J): What do you do?
Defendant (D): I write poetry, I suppose.
J: No supposing! Stand up straight! Don't lean against the wall! Look at the court!
Do you have a permanent job?
D: I thought it was a permanent job.
J: Answer the questions directly!
D: I write poetry. I thought it would be published. I suppose.
J: We are not interested in what you "suppose." Answer: why weren't you working?
D: I did work. I wrote poetry.
J: We are not interested in that. We want to know what organization you were affiliated with.
D: I had contracts with publishing houses.
J: They say that. Do you have enough contracts to earn your livelihood? List the dates of your contracts and the compensation they afforded.
D: I do not remember exactly. My lawyer has all my contracts.
J: I am asking you.
D: In Moscow, two books containing my translations were published.
J: How long is your work record?
D: About...
J: We are not interested in "about!"
D: Five (5) years.
J: Where did you work.
D: At the factory, in the geological team...
J: How long did you work at the factory?
D: A year.
J: Your position?
D: A metal cutter.
J: And what was your occupation in general?
D: Poet, poet-translator.
J: And who recognized you as a poet? Who set you among the ranks of the poets?
D: No one. And who put me in the ranks of humanity?
J: Did you study it?
D: What?
[I presume the poet wonders if he was being asked if he had formally studied being human.]
J: How to be a poet? Did you finish a certificate at trade school? Were you properly apprenticed?
D: I did not think poetry was given to one by education.
J: By what then?
D: I think poetry comes...from God.
J: Do you have an appeal for the court?
D: I would like to know why I was arrested.
J: That is not an appeal.
D: In that case I have no appeal.
J: Does the lawyer for the defense have any questions?
Lawyer (L): Yes. Do you contribute earnings to your family?
D: Yes.
L: Are your parents working?
D: They are retired.
L: Do you live with them?
D: Yes.
L: So your earnings are part of the family budget?
J: You are not asking questions, you are making assumptions. Do not assume. Ask.
L: Are you registered at the psychiatric clinic?
D: Yes.
L: Did you go through treatment?
D: Yes. From December the rear before last until January this year in the Kashchenko Hospital in Moscow.
L: Do you not think that you illness prevented you from working regularly in one place for a time?
D: Yes. No. Maybe. Probably. I don't know. I don't know.
L: Did you translate poems for an edition of The Cuban Poets?
D: Yes.
L: Did you translate the Spanish Romantico?
D: Yes.
L: Are you affiliated with the Translator's Department of the Writer's Union?
D: Yes.
L: I request the Defendant be sent for medical evaluation to determine whether or not his health prevented him from holding a job on a regular basis. I further request that he be immediately released from custody as he has a permanent residence and can return to court at any time.
J: Very good. The Defendant is to be sent to police precinct #18, where he will be housed. There, he will be given psychiatric evaluation to determine whether or not he suffers from any illness that should prevent his being sent away for forced labor.
Judge (J): What do you do?
Defendant (D): I write poetry, I suppose.
J: No supposing! Stand up straight! Don't lean against the wall! Look at the court!
Do you have a permanent job?
D: I thought it was a permanent job.
J: Answer the questions directly!
D: I write poetry. I thought it would be published. I suppose.
J: We are not interested in what you "suppose." Answer: why weren't you working?
D: I did work. I wrote poetry.
J: We are not interested in that. We want to know what organization you were affiliated with.
D: I had contracts with publishing houses.
J: They say that. Do you have enough contracts to earn your livelihood? List the dates of your contracts and the compensation they afforded.
D: I do not remember exactly. My lawyer has all my contracts.
J: I am asking you.
D: In Moscow, two books containing my translations were published.
J: How long is your work record?
D: About...
J: We are not interested in "about!"
D: Five (5) years.
J: Where did you work.
D: At the factory, in the geological team...
J: How long did you work at the factory?
D: A year.
J: Your position?
D: A metal cutter.
J: And what was your occupation in general?
D: Poet, poet-translator.
J: And who recognized you as a poet? Who set you among the ranks of the poets?
D: No one. And who put me in the ranks of humanity?
J: Did you study it?
D: What?
[I presume the poet wonders if he was being asked if he had formally studied being human.]
J: How to be a poet? Did you finish a certificate at trade school? Were you properly apprenticed?
D: I did not think poetry was given to one by education.
J: By what then?
D: I think poetry comes...from God.
J: Do you have an appeal for the court?
D: I would like to know why I was arrested.
J: That is not an appeal.
D: In that case I have no appeal.
J: Does the lawyer for the defense have any questions?
Lawyer (L): Yes. Do you contribute earnings to your family?
D: Yes.
L: Are your parents working?
D: They are retired.
L: Do you live with them?
D: Yes.
L: So your earnings are part of the family budget?
J: You are not asking questions, you are making assumptions. Do not assume. Ask.
L: Are you registered at the psychiatric clinic?
D: Yes.
L: Did you go through treatment?
D: Yes. From December the rear before last until January this year in the Kashchenko Hospital in Moscow.
L: Do you not think that you illness prevented you from working regularly in one place for a time?
D: Yes. No. Maybe. Probably. I don't know. I don't know.
L: Did you translate poems for an edition of The Cuban Poets?
D: Yes.
L: Did you translate the Spanish Romantico?
D: Yes.
L: Are you affiliated with the Translator's Department of the Writer's Union?
D: Yes.
L: I request the Defendant be sent for medical evaluation to determine whether or not his health prevented him from holding a job on a regular basis. I further request that he be immediately released from custody as he has a permanent residence and can return to court at any time.
J: Very good. The Defendant is to be sent to police precinct #18, where he will be housed. There, he will be given psychiatric evaluation to determine whether or not he suffers from any illness that should prevent his being sent away for forced labor.
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"For the remainder of the trial, she had to write while keeping her head up, refraining from looking at her notebook. Let us recall that “notebook” here does not mean a laptop computer, but just a pad of paper (see figures 2–3 below)."
By 2014, a photograph was necessary to ensure the reader knew what a pad of paper was.
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But two of them are too wordy, so maybe twelve plus an advertising gag panel that would ruin the strip if it was left in.
Now, I just need nine strips in at least three categories:
(1) Joe Brosky (such a stretch for a name!) poeting in public with nefarious background people like in The Master and Margarita.
Whispers: "Did he rhyme?" "That wasn't meter, was it?"
(2) Joe Brosky's arrest.
(3) Chiseling poems in the quarry at near the gulag.
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