Behind the Cold Bars

Poverty stricken, Defrauding them was unintentional, But the magistrate's judgement and sentence was constitutional. We have been on the street, Hustling, surviving but making money remains strict. In prison, the Black Maria opened and the warder uncuffed him like a preath, There he could feel the icy grip of death, The prison cells builders poured pure hatred into the design, As the crested pains and agony on the walls formed memorable signs. In the cell, time flowed like a weak flood, And the noxious bed bugs engorge with his blood. Commissary got empty, Stronger and hopeless inmates eating his ration with no pity. Living in pains, Sometimes waking him up killed him outright, The shock of whom he really was ain't right, The killer rather than the killed, And the fraudster rather than the skilled. He wish To get out and move forward with his life, The thought of the years ahead still cut him deep like a knife. The doors and gate - a brooding, grey mass of steel beams and mesh, topped by razor wire, Killing his escape intentions and desire. Daily, His blood and sweat drop on the sand, Because he wants to stand, Many names and cases were forgotten, His own will gradually get rotten. The torture rooms Produce the only gruesome sound he knows, He needs an angel like Beyonce Knowles, To lead him out of the deadly penitentiary, To a place where he would be a free beneficiary. The world, Is turning him around, He may die on that ground, His skull is skinned to change his description, But crime and chains are combined to doom him to perdition. His gloomy soul Prays for visitation and freedom, Yet, tears, regrets and pang are all he sees in the secluded kingdom, Every wake of dawn says heaven is far, If he survives, I know he won't wish to be behind cold bars. For my friends in Aba, Calabar and Nsukka prisons, Nigeria.