Legal Hot Takes – A poem for Parsha Mishpatim

I
You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor man in his lawsuit.
Exodus 23:6

I tried to buy a lawsuit once
but they wanted to upsell me
with the law-shoes and the law-tie.

II
But in the seventh [year] you shall release [the land]
and abandon it; the poor of your people shall eat [it]
Exodus 23:11

My back yard lemons are ready for you
my neighbors, my friends
Let your iced teas be forever garnished
Let this Sabbath of the land
garnish all that is yours.

III
Three times you shall slaughter sacrifices to Me during the year.
Exodus 23:14

The one good thing about
The Temple being rubble is
I don’t have to mix myself up
in the entrails of my finest lambs.
Or decide which one gets to go.

IV
You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.
Exodus 23:19

I never do
I never would
There was a time once
when I did
But not now
Not anymore
Not ever

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.