Legal Poems Competition

Issue 3, Volume 18

De Minimis would like to thank Rory Dempsey, Lizz Kuiper and our mysterious anonymous contributor for  sending in competition poems, and we are pleased to congratulate Lizz Kuiper on winning our first competition of the semester!

Please see below for a full catalogue of entries!

Image: Wikimedia Commons

An Ode to 185 Pelham 

LIZZ KUIPER

It’s been five months since we were last on campus, and lockdown has left me nostalgic for the little things… 


What I wouldn’t give to be huddled up in a lecture theatre today 
A rainbow of Frank Green keep cups (remember those?) lining the front row 
A too-loud whisper cutting through an explanation of Hearsay – 
‘Do you have a charger for a MacBook Pro?’ 


I’m feeling nostalgic for those hot summer days, hotter still for those twirling sausages on the lawn of University Square as they wield cheap white bread like sceptres, shining beacons of free food for throngs of stressed students escaping the stifling JD Silent Section   


Who’d have thought I’d start to miss the law school – a building with all the personality of a Carr’s water cracker, and yet … 
I’d risk the anxious clerkship chatter, or hearing a stressy Susan dissect an answer to an exam question that I Did Not Get
Just to be back with my pals on Pelham 


I even miss the too-eager-beavers, whose hands fly into the air like fireworks before the lecturer has finished asking their question
So starved of social interaction, I am now the obnoxious law kid in the room 
You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain 
I say, as I unmute myself on Zoom 


Yes, I’m aware I sound like a sycophant 
I’m just feeling my feelings – definitely not a secret LSS plant
So please don’t take to the comments to have an anonymous rant
About how I’m wrong, because today … I just can’t 


I’d probably sell a kidney to destroy my liver at law ball 
Or perhaps I’d sell my custom MLS corps textbook – that may be worth more 
I’d kill to be studying in the building again, on my most favourite floor 
(Mezzanine) 
Oh, how I wish I could be walking through those iconic revolving doors


I still wouldn’t go to Porta Via though. 

Framing the Constitution

​RORY DEMPSEY

Said one Framer to another:
“By our Lord, to think we're done!
A decade of debating, verbal tussles, all hard-won!” 

Said the other to the Framer:
​“Aye, ‘twas tough, but we were limber.
I'm glad we dug our heels in for the oak, instead of timber.” 

Said that Framer to the other:
“Now, the hardest task of all!
​Where are we to hang it? Over here, or in the hall?” 

​

Three limericks
​
RORY DEMPSEY 

There once was a sly politician
Of repugnant and vile disposition.
As was clear from his Bill
His intentions were ill
But the High Court curtail'd his ambition. 

‘Twas the Justice, a man old and dour,
In a speech that would last the whole hour:
“Though the power,” he said,
“Has gone straight to your head,
​To make laws, you will need heads of power!” 

After weeks of High Curial venting,
When the whole bench had finished presenting,
They at last had agreed
But they shuddered to read
On the final page: Kirby (dissenting). 

A Mysterious Malkin Blessing

ANONYMOUS

On the eve before my first exam
Whoever did I see
A lonely Ian Malkin 
at the Coles on Barkly 

Six weeks of uni was all we'd had
Could I still recognise the fellow?
Was this Pre exam delirium
Or should I go and say hello

With that distinctive moustache 
and cargo shorts adorned
This man was surely Ian
My first year self fawned 

My own good luck charm
a message from the gods 
The exams won’t be that hard 
if Malkin shops at Coles!
​
But worse, would it not be him
I live in Brunswick after all
Odd fashion and strange hair 
are not that strange at all

A friendly lass or so I’m told
But this day was an exception 
I feared to check 
And break the spell
Of a mysterious Malkin blessing