Acrostic

In Competition No. 2375 you were asked for an appropriate acrostic poem in which the first letters of each line spell out THERE IS NO JUSTICE.

The key phrase occurred to me because I remembered that in an Australian novel I once published (author Michael Noonan) there was a character, a stationmaster, who had the words picked out in white pebbles on his bungalow lawn. Talking of justice, I regret that for a time the top winner will not receive a bonus prize, since we are temporarily short of sponsorship. We must march through a desert patch until an oasis is spotted. Commendations this week to Martin Parker and Paul Griffin, and a salute but, alas, nothing drinkable to Ray Kelley, whose entry was my favourite. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each.

Three thousand ducats for a three-month term:
How stupefying was the gall, the sheer
Effrontery of that gentile who had voided
Rheum on my beard and Jewish gaberdine
Each time I crossed his path in the Rialto!
I had good reason, though, to grant the loan.
Sweet would be my revenge, for I imposed
No bond but this, the borrower’s pound of flesh
On the due date, and rumour had his freight
Jetsam and flotsam: I would reap that bond.
Unhappily the plan miscarried. First
Some bloody-minded quibble queered my claim;
Then, thanks to trumped-up law and ducal whim,
I lost my wealth, my livelihood, my faith.
Converted Christian? See me cross myself,
Even as I curse all Christian hypocrites.
Ray Kelley

‘That’s so unfair!’ the tearful child will cry.
He’s sure the wavering adult will comply
Each time he makes his dubious appeal.
Rarely, if ever, is he told, ‘Get real!
Effect will follow cause, as night the day.
If, when the boulder falls, you’re in the way,
Start running, lad. When falling from a height,
No object will distinguish wrong from right,
Or swerve to squash the sinner not the saint.
Justice