Poem 492

I was always interested in the arcane and deadpan language of court reports …

Proceeding

Jesus Christ
aka Juan Antonio Cadiz
was today tried on charges
of major fraud and tax evasion
after a deportation order was
successfully served on him
while he was visiting Mexico
City

The charges are believed to relate
back as far as two thousand years
and intelligence agencies claim
to have a file on the activities
of Christ and his associates
'a mile long'

The prosecution in their opening speech
claimed that Christ (or Cadiz) had
falsified evidence of his own death
in order that a cult would form around
him posthumously the members of which
would serve him as a source of (undeclared) income

The presiding judge commented that this was 
a particularly subtle deception since the defendant 
had been able to cover himself by convincing acolytes 
he was both alive and dead
at the same time
                                   However 
as the Justice pointed out
there certainly was deception
since Christ's followers were led to believe
he was alive in some extra-corporal form
beyond normal concepts of space and time
rather than in a secluded and highly guarded
villa somewhere in Paraguay

Proceeding