The Lawyer’s Plea

[Vernal]

I just ran across this today and I thought I'd share. It's by a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist (2x, I think) named Gene Weingarten, who writes for the Washington Post. This one won't win any prizes, but does have a relevant tie-in for this forum.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifest...hCT_story.html

As he prefaced this column: "Another installment in my ongoing efforts to lose more readers by re-telling old jokes as bad poems."

The Lawyer’s Plea,
in the style of “The Village Blacksmith,”
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



Under the spreading chestnut tree

The city lawyer rants,

His car a mashed-up wreck to see,

And blood upon his pants.

Up pulls a man in uniform

As the lawyer stamps and chants.

“My ride! My car! My Cadillac!”

The lawyer’s plaint doth ooze —

“My Prada suit’s ripped front to back,

My Bruno Magli shoes!”

All this the officer does note

Part sadly, part amused.

“You lawyers,” says the cop in scorn,

“Are scoundrels pure and utter.

It’s just for baubles that you mourn,

As you rage and rail and mutter,

Yet you don’t see your whole left arm

Is lying in the gutter!”

This shut the lawyer’s mouth at last

He stopped and looked about

The cop was right, he saw, aghast

Blood from a stump did spout.

So then he loosed a grieving wail —

“MY ROLEX” he screamed out.