J A M E S   B U T L E R-G R U E T T
&
G A B R I E L   D O Z A L 

2 poems

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LIBERTY ACTIVIST STEVEN JOHNSON: In your notes that morning, you wrote that “I was in a clear Doppler zone.” What is a Doppler zone?

 

OFFICER ANTIN: Clear Doppler tone.

 

LIBERTY ACTIVIST STEVEN JOHNSON: Tone?

 

 

For a legal poem, there’s no better beginning

than a misheard siren. Step in, Reader. Get

in the zone, Doppler zone, and take Your Honor. 

The judge of our chapbook sits wigless in their robes, 

in a double-breasted suit the color their enamel should be—

 

might be, if they were diligent about brushing— 

 

instead of reading legal briefings, late evenings spent before

a legal pad, chosen specifically because its common name is so 

appropriate for a judge. Your Honor likes the blue-green horizontal lines,

the yellow paper, and the red vertical lines, the three colors of an

eternal and galactic traffic light bearing down on the judgments you’ll

encounter as you read on, Reader.

 

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Plaintive Plaintiff, our central foe, turns a wry eye toward Steven.

In this first case he tests his mettle against our poor Liberty Activist

on trumped-up charges. It seems he mixes up his tones with his zones

like his cones, like a driving test, like navigating sleepily among a freeway 

construction site on an early morning drive to work, his stereo blasting Springsteen,

“I’m on Fire,” and its motorik mayhem, and he wishes now that maybe he had been on fire

instead of brought in here to defend himself against a preposterous speeding ticket.

Here comes Officer Antin with his notes. 

 

 

Oh, most cops do? Well, Reader, this one shouldn’t have, not with his sloppy handwriting,

tripping up Liberty Activist Steven Johnson, in the free state of Rhode Island, trying to parse

Antin’s ts and ds. The only thing left for them to do his to flay Johnson or put

him in the stocks, handcuff him, put a dunce cap on his curly locks.

 

As you can see, Reader, from the notes, Johnson does not make a right 

at the stoplight, even though Antin says he did. This remains contested. 

It remains to be revealed what our verdict will be, and only Your Honor can know.

Only the sketch artists can attest to it now, Reader. Only in Rhode Island

does your voice change with every step you take,

 

 

there can this year teach us anything if this year has taught us anything,

only there can we find a buffer zone, a splash zone, in your personal space, 

no spin, only there can you turn right at love. 

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LIBERTY ACTIVIST STEVEN JOHNSON: Is there a personal threshold that you personally abide by when you decide to pull somebody over?

 

OFFICER ANTIN: I can’t say there’s a personal threshold—

 

LIBERTY ACTIVIST STEVEN JOHNSON: A professional threshold, perhaps?

 

OFFICER ANTIN: It depends on the terrain, the pedestrians in the area, weather conditions. There’s a variety of factors I take into account, personally.

 

 

Like any good activist-lawyer, Steven knows what to thresh 

and what to hold, Your Honor. Should he decide to, he can scatter

Antin’s testimony across the courtroom like so much verbal chaff. 

 

We, personally?

 

Our personal threshold exists where Steven Johnson drives his life 

into it, Your Honor, and we have no choice but to ticket. We’re meter

maids to the poetry of violations, and we must in this case issue 

a citation to you, Reader (but never to you, Your Honor, oh never). 

The citation’s in MLA, which as far as we know, Your Honor, is still

legal in the state of Rhode Island? Couldn’t resist, couldn’t resist. In

any case, there’s a variety of factors at play: 

 

In Rhode Island, we have a state of limiting mobility. Don’t speed,

don’t run, don’t put your shoes on, don’t pivot, don’t cut, don’t urge,

don’t zoom, don’t rush, don’t hurry. If this year has taught us anything, 

it’s not to hurry, a lesson we need to forget. 

Reader, if you care about poetry, you have probably not 

contested a speeding ticket. Or if you have, work with us here, 

humor us. Traffic court is not what you think it is.

It’s a world of neon with Darude 

playing on a sweat-soaked Serrano—

and not “Sandstorm,” but the deep cuts, the b-sides. 

Don’t be Darude. Be a young Liberty Activist, 

faced with Plaintive Plaintiff and a stiff upper lip 

to the world of Your Honors. Chambers of accusing angels 

and liquidated claims, but you can’t ticket a wave.

Try putting cuffs on an ice cube and see the gas 

of your claims pour out magistrates and majuscules.

 

Your Honor, consider the case before you of Steven Johnson, crosser of thresholds, 

Charon of terrains and weathers, who dares to plow 

his metal car over the streets and Amber-Depp waves of grain.

He is our first defendant, and we ask you to be lenient!

 

But the Plaintive Plaintiff, the accusing angel, will not abate, will give no quarter. 

Plaintive Plaintiff sits redly among his council, 

his rolling chair pushed back and squealing on its hinges. He’s content, 

because he knows he’s won. Liberty Activist Steven Johnson has trespassed 

a threshold, crossed his legal terrain, and Your Honor? 

We ask you to look up from your legal pad and its traffic-light colors 

to consider the case before you. Look at the evidence: the Doppler Zone, 

the hands that are free, the true Liberty Activist, and the terrain that was crossed.

 

But no. It’s a dog-up-dog world in this courthouse.

It’s an open secret that Your Honor can see only in shades of red

and yellow and green. All law is a contest, and Steven’s lost this one,

has been working on his tone for years, perfecting the mids, but on that fateful day 

it is all lows when he hears the siren toll his name. 

 

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