Justice is an Egg [Edit]

[dukealien]

Thanks, @Pdeathstar!  As with @Mattp's, the answer seems to be tighter editing and somehow framing the whole thing so readers are thinking in the intended context ("ghetto" law enforcement) - but showing rather than telling.  Maybe start with a "visual" intro like, "Which came first,/people who think testifying is snitching/or police who don't help?" but with images rather than flat-footed explanation.

I've been told to use fewer commas in free verse, overdid their removal this time.  And complete sentences, though convoluted...  Revision may take a while for this one!  Might try my hand at a simpler topic, like General Relativity.

Justice is an Egg


Justice is an egg whose rooster is
    white outrage, red revenge,
    black vendetta when avengers meet
    heeled, spurred, bloody-eyed
    drive-by cockfighting
    over insults that define them
    but happen to be crimes.
the lack of commas in the appropriate places makes it difficult to pull a sentence from this, and although I can try to develope an importance in the color choice, I find it quite a stretch to do so without other context clues, I might reconsider the title.

Justice is an egg whose hen-fowl is
    acceptance, resignation that complies
    but briefly tames the cocksure savage,
    yields to force majeure,
    pecks listlessly
    sharp jots and tittles of the law
    but in the end nests, brooding.

quite clever, honestly. I think the middle two lines (majeure listlessly) should be considered in the next edit, they don't quite stand up as their own line, imo

Justice is an egg, infertile if
    its hen does not conceive
    or if its rooster’s outrage fails,
    witnesses hide, terrorized, lose hope.
    Detectives facing surly anti-snitching kind of losing the metaphor here.
    shrug and lose their hard resolve,
    cannot sell the concept of impartial
    but implacable redress by law.

Justice is an egg whose hatchling is
    trust - confidence bereaved and victimized
    will have their day, and witnesses their say
    in safety.  Shedding shells of lawyers,
    bureaucrats, officials, policies -
    offspring of compliance
    and revenge, trust wobbles
    but it grows.

I kind of feel you stayed true and clever with your metsphor in the first few stanzas but ran out of steam in the end.... the stanzas have nothing to do with an egg, hen, or chicken. I think if you could find away to extend the metaphors into these stanzas you'd really have something special, because the opening is pretty great

---

After reading Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (Jil Leovy).

It's the chicken and the egg:  ghetto people won't talk to the police because the police never do anything about the thugs (and anyway the thugs would come after them) so instead they root for more murders to avenge the crime... and police never do anything because no one will testify and they can't just execute street justice on the thugs they suspect.