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.
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