Best Jail Poems
How proud they put them on display
Two thousand of the first of fortyk
There President Bukele did say
They’ll live in the jailhouse for decades
he went on boasting, in jail it’s judgement day,
as he held his glass of brandy toasting
inmates, suspected violent gang members
moved to a new mega-prison in El Salvador
Transferred to the Center of Confinement of Terrorism
Mixed up, unable to do any more harm
to the population, it was said
So why do I care about these souls,
tears flowed as I read the article
about thousands of prisoners, and Bukele in particular
Central American country’s notorious pandillas
And right then I understood why I cried
Hundreds never made it to round two, que pesadillas
There are the innocent ones who are denied
a fair trial, it's sad to think that nothing can be done
for a mother's innocent son
Life is hard and then you die
in the meantime you mostly cry
It seems to me that you have been changed
your attitude somewhat rearranged
The place you've been is not so nice
and a terrible place to seek advice
All who go there have had a hard life
full of grief and constant strife
They think they know what to do to survive
but they are not living - they are merely alive
That place is rife with takers trying to live in the strife
neither knowing how to give nor how to live life
You are different from them I know
and you have important places to go
Listen carefully to those who really care
they're the ones that can get you there
How it is now is not how it's supposed to be
you are actually supposed to be free
Free always to be who you are - yourself
and never to be put on a shelf
Only you can find the answers you seek
and it will certainly take more than a week
Hard work is coming of that be certain
I pray you put away your fear and raise that curtain
The curtain you closed to create the blind
to tearfully cower and hide behind.
The time is now for the light to shine on you
and light the way for the life you want for you.
All that’s left now is to do the crying
and please know you’re not really dying.
It is a part of life and it’s truly a life worth living
especially when you start giving
Giving freely with no concern
knowing there'll likely be nothing in return
That is truly a life worth living - a life of love and learning
to put finally to rest that painful burning
So there you have what many believe
a concept I pray you are of a mind to receive
You’ll make the right choices on that you should depend
and know always my love and friendship will never end.
It was a week before my eighteenth birthday;
I was a drug dealer. Hooked also, but with no cares.
From a small town where no one had any money,
I figured I would get off like the rich kids whose daddies bought their freedom.
But my daddy was a convict, and he had no money.
He only had a son, me.
The judge decided to make an example of me.
Because there would be no fuss.
Because I was a poor boy from a poor family,
and my family was deemed “bad”.
I was “bad” by association, and of course, my mother was the town whore. Which did not help.
So they put me in for twenty-five years, and I was not even eighteen.
Don’t worry, a public defender who did not know me lied.
You might have to serve eight.
I got into fights because I did not want to do what others did.
I wanted to keep myself for myself.
Or for a nice girl.
I was a horrible inmate.
The guards were always dragging me to the prison doctor.
I got sent away before I was eighteen.
I came out a week before my forty-third birthday.
My youth spent in prison, with others who made a mistake,
most of them poor, many black.
I was one of the few whites in there,
because they do not usually make examples of us.
But I was a poor kid from a poor family,
and they wanted to make an example of me.
Lesson learned. Try to be rich in America.
And do not make any mistakes if you are black or poor.
During lunch I announced when I retire I am going to go to jail.
What?
Jail, I repeated. I will rob a bank or something.
The three others laughed.
Think about it, I told them. How much do nursing homes cost?
They started to think about it and discussed how much they
Were already paying for their own mothers
$4,500 a month $8,000 a month, $10,000 a month.
Jail is free right? To the prisoner anyway, not to the rest of us.
I could play cards, make lots of new friends, and maybe write poetry
New story ideas I’ll bet, maybe some really juicy new story ideas!
My family would save thousands of dollars, maybe even tens of thousands
Of dollars.
How would you get in? I would rob a bank, I told them. No one laughed.
They were thinking…..
Then all three burst out laughing.
I could! I insisted, convincing no one, not even myself.
A blanket laying, book-reading, lemonade sipper
turns a page
There is a ghost of sadness in this place
shared madness, despair and rage
Somewhere in the sandy and dreaded dune
convicted breath feels as warm as the month of June
She feels the depression that once enveloped
a once upon a time, mild-mannered man’s illness
Now there is only stillness and something
in the Saugatuck breeze that feels like a gasp
Old scribbles on his walls of silence
seemed, or once was deemed prophetic
“I was wasted just like today was”
a mother’s son whiled away the time
Too forsaken and forgotten to find rhyme
abbreviated sighs and another day’s tally mark
For him, fate…
the future came much too late
The unholy hole handed a mother’s son the shivers
Her lemonade is coldly soothing
sour moments taken in without regrets
Moving her toes in the warm sands once tread
by a man with invasive demons in his head
It is oddly unclear what once happened here.
She turns another page long after he could have.
Perambulating in Jail
‘Hey you in the middle march on in median mediocrity’
No subversive elements needed no lateral thinking and
no thinking per se is required once you follow the crowd
‘No eccentricity get into that box until no box is required’
So-called traitors poets intellectuals struggle with blame
are deemed the fifth column since we should be all equal
On the battle fields of evil ‘you are with us or against us’
while the golden mean of virtue and reason withers away
in dire misappropriation of the ancient theme of wisdom
‘Stay on the path’ and soon there will be fences and bars
when you will finally accept the message and convenience that
prisons and goal post surely protect all of us simply from our Selves
Unless of course we chose to march in the centre of convictions
behold as treasures the journey without the meddling middlemen
or women who claim the truth from poisoned cages of indifference
April 2017
two cats stare
through the barrier of bars
the caged bird sings
John G. Lawless
©7/31/2018
In jail
No bail
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) 6 July 2015 All Rights Reserved
Tied for No. 3 in Judy Konos' "One Footle" Contest
I want you here,
But your there
I can’t help myself
Down comes another tear
It used to be me and you everyday
Now the bars in the way
I wish that you wasn’t in jail
If I had the money I would pay your bail
I just wish there was a way for you to be here
Just me and you, nobody else
I love you so much,
But I’m here and you’re stuck there
I can’t wait till the day that I can be in your arms again
You’re the only one that I want out of all these men
I wake up in pain
my wrists have shiny handcuffs
I am in jail
My heart feels ice-cold
It will not stop its beating
I wish it would stop
My cell mate is gone
I am feeling so alone
I just want to die
Here I sit in my gilded cage
Bars confine me because I got in a rage
No chance for a roll in the hay
As I’m locked up 24 hours a day
The only bars are the ones that imprison me
Only twenty more years and I then will be free
Locked up for a crime that I admit
Being in prison is simply rubbish (I couldn't use my rhyming word!)
101 Poems in a row #17 sponsored by PD Linda :-)
10th May 2015
Dear Homeland Security Director No-em
I feel compelled to write you this po-em
They won't let me post bail
Get me out of this jail
I'm not a gang member and want to go ho-em!
My bright and exquisite pink heart-shaped tat
is being mocked by a gangsta in a Maga hat
All hope I must banish
I don't even speak Spanish
My doomed fate is sealed, just another stat
My drunken old aunty’s in jail,
She murdered a man for his ale,
And although she is bad,
I suppose she is mad
She isn’t allowed out on bail.
For Judy’s Relatives contest
(Purely fictional)
After a wonderful late afternoon walk in the park,
my wife and I moseyed over to the Japanese Hibachi Grille for some dinner.
What we got into was some good old fashioned drama down at BeniHana...
You see, I got me a fetish for shiny cookware,
so as the patrons' eyes honed in on the iron chef
dicing up onions, shrimp, and chicken...
mine were busy fantasizing about concealing Ginsu knives
clankin' in the kitchen.
"Brew Silly began his routine with the hot fire volcano bit
atop the flat grille.
In the distraction, my sticky fingers began reactin',
slippin' utensils inside my zipper, for a thrill.
Things started heatin' up as folks were eating up;
Spatulas started flyin'!
Mushrooms were a fryin',
My conscience stopped trying...
tired of getting beaten up!
Now, if I told you I was lookin' at what was cookin'...
I'd be a lyin'.
I mean, I was really tryin',
but the devil had me by the klepto-hands...guiding me.
Riling me up.
He said, "Go for one of them Wok's! Do it now Big Dog!
Get yir rocks off! Knock yir socks off!
Quick man...sly like a fox, Hoss!"
My heart said, "No", but my head said, "OH HELL YES!"
Sadly, I was in cahoots with the devil,
bass mixed with treble,
trouble poundin' in my chest!
So guess what came next?-
I grabbed one of them big brass bitches,
signaled Jessie's ass with a quickness,
and started gunnin for the door!
Of course, my good hearted wife started whinin',
"Honey, I wasn't done, now what are we leavin' for?"
"Listen baby, I'll explain later.
Right now it's time to go!"
As we passed the pretty little hostess,
she banged the gong and said real fast,
"AHH, Tank-You Berry Much F'wor Cummean Fwolks!"
We jetted towards the park, but it was getting dark.
My legs began to fail. The cops were on our tail.
We tried to walk and play it off, but it was no use.
We should have stayed and ate our food,
and drank our brews with "BREWS!"
The pigs threw me to the ground,
then began to squeal and bark.
They tossed us in the County Jail,
twenty thousand bail...
____________FOR TAKIN' A WOK TO THE PARK!!!
~"True story ={WinK+Wink}
He's in jail
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