In Cardiff Jail

In Cardiff Jail In Cardiff Jail, grey dawn breaks on razored walls and living-blocks of stone. High barren landings amplify harsh slamming gates, and emphasise the echoes of the bosses' yells and rattled keys of doors that only ever bang behind. Alone I trudge the long dark tunnel of my ''time'' – caged bird, spiralling inside the wasteland of a mind with nothing gained and nothing left. Pleasure is the hotplate stop for porridge slop and morning shuffle round a yard with obscure friend of bully-boy and baron – grass – and those but barely sane. Hear torment in the traffic roar. Is she some minute blended part of that? sharing lungfuls of this fitful breeze? I flee from gulls that scream and soar and laugh at me, - ''come see, we're free!'' – and merge into my daily chore of sweep and swab; then buff the polished floor amid the clanging steel and shouts; dream my boredom; cry my shame; or grind my hate and shift the blame. Again, her ''Dear John'' crashes in my brain, so blacking out some distant light. For she's out there somewhere with him, and I must stay within this wing of rusty bars and bang-up cells, in my grey world of yesterdays where tomorrow always stays some distant unknown-life away.