Adams - Briefcase

JOHN ADAMS LOST Briefcase containing legal documents and poems. Phone John Adams if found (obtain telephone number from reception). TO: Betina Adams OBE for getting me started FIRST DEDICATEE AND TO: Usha Patel and Brandon Adams jointly and severally for encouraging my continuance SECOND DEDICATEES If the language were of death, would you better understand the need for care ful measurement, retention of a solemn respect ful tone, the decency of boxing it in and laying it down; the red-eyed need for stone memorials with proliferate moss overgrowing the text? Or, say the language were of sex rather than of law, would you better comprehend the passionate com pression and timeless ritual of the essential exchange, the rising quest for satisfaction; rhythmic moans, intensity of bondage, stifling control, ramping tension and euphoric release of another miracle of everyday transaction? And what if the language were of poetry, my friend, would law turn to its arms and seek to be buried there forevermore? It has much to do with focus: Socrates would have us question the fog until its particulate nature is objectively revealed, as if naming the unknown, like love or terror, if these be truly different, will aid us. Yet a sense of quietude can descend, a recompense for having moved one damp step more into the mist. The dice await me, the words roll. Each face a crown hope dips.

A dozen inferent arrows sent presumption sleeps her ignorant sleep. The sheepish rush from contemplation to condemnation brings Hacting hon informationreceived, Hi harrestedthe miscreant dot dot dot blank falls, my arrow hurtles home. What is cast connotes my guilt. Id swear my wager fixed.

The athlete takes up position in the apparatus, prepared for several circuits. Tension cranked up, the pain of those late extensions can be anticipated already, and its only ten oclock.

The press bench empties after one murder; eleven men beat their partners; fifteen men and women drive drunk, one injures a passenger; methamphetamine, indecency, cannabis, methamphetamine again; two benefit fraudsters; then a cheque fraudster with forty-seven charges, forty-seven informations, forty seven repetitive notations to make; defended bails, and its lunch-time already. The athlete checks with the trainer: how many still to go? Thirty-two. But there were twenty-nine at ten and weve done heaps more than that. OK, a special Police operation so well be here until six, maybe longer. Could top ninety today. We are on the river now: the mind must assess each stroke; the arm reach in each case, dip for the law, pull powerfully, cleanly.

The river maintains a placid surface, seemingly serene in relentless flow, while the athlete sweats at the sculls, exercising the iron craft, evenly, evenly, achingly, to days end.

I teeter blind on my pebbledbrink look dont look iceinvades my vacuum my stapleddeed tears at the cornerthis purchase promises to giveif I decline may I havethis fierce vampiredroprushes Angel bodies melt into mine; my cloven metabolism alters; celestial humours, fluttering moth-wings, wrench me to unknown rhythms; I rip where each feather slices, know not rise nor fall but hold out in darkness for joy through some cleft. TO Your Will MY FEE THIS IS THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT of me GEORGE CHARLES BERRY of Hamilton in the Dominion of New Zealand School Teacher. 1. I REVOKE all wills and testamentary dispositions at any time heretofore made by me. 2.

IN the event of my spouse GWENDOLINE ANNE BERRY surviving me for a period of fourteen days I GIVE DEVISE AND BEQUEATH all the property both real and personal of whatsoever kind and wheresoever situate of which I shall be seised or possessed or to which I shall be entitled at the date of my death or over which I shall have any power to dispose by this my will unto my said spouse and I APPOINT my said spouse to be sole executor of this my will. 3. IN the event of my said spouse not surviving me for a period of fourteen days then: A. I APPOINT as execut ors and truste e s of this my will my child ren THOMAS KEVIN BERRY and VERITY CHARLOTTE BERRY . B. I GIVE DEVISE AND BEQUEATH all the property both real and personal of whatsoever kind and wheresoever situate of which I shall be seised or possess ed or to which I shall be entitled at the date of my death or over which I shall have any power to dispose by this my will including the proceeds of policies of insurance on my life unto my Trustees UPON TRUST to pay thereout all my just debts funeral graveyard and testamentary expenses and all duties payable on or in respect of my dutiable estate including duties payable on my death in respect of any gifts or settlements which I may have made in my lifetime AND TO DIVIDE the rest residue and remainder of such property equally among such of my children THOMAS KEVIN BERRY and VERITY CHARLOTTE BERRY as survive me.

PROVIDED HOWEVER that if any of my said children predecease me leaving a child or children who shall survive me then such child or children shall take and if more than one equally among them the share which the parent of such last-mentioned child or children would have taken had such parent survived me. IN addition, to any other powers possessed by or vested in the executor, executors, administrator, administrators, trustee or trustees hereof for the time being (hereinafter in this clause all and singular referred to as and included in the expression my Trustee) I EMPOWER my Trustee in my Trustees absolute discretion to do all or any of the following things: (a) To sell call in and convert into money all or any part of the property both real and personal forming part of my estate and not already consisting of money and to do so irrespective of the value of such property or any part thereof at the time of selling calling in or converting as aforesaid. (b) In any sale of my freehold or leasehold estate, to allow such part of the sale price as my Trustee shall in my Trustees absolute discretion think fit to remain outstanding upon first mortgage of such property upon such terms as to repayment and otherwise as my Trustee shall deem expedient. (c) To postpone the sale calling in or conversion of all or any part of the property both real and personal forming part of my estate from time to time