Michael Kalavik | + Follow Poet |
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Poetic Justice - Birdman of Easyville

The gavel slammed its judgement down
On my impassioned plea,
Doomed to run-on sentences
Served concurrently.
My term began an infinite jest,
Time after time, time without rest.
On and on, again and again,
Ad infinitum, days without end.
Illicit contraband stashed in my sock, 
Wearing a jumpsuit here on The Rock.
Sand in an hourglass keeps me in hock.
Forever and ever, and ever so more.
Each day and night a grim tug of war.
Idle in lockdown with yada, yada, yada, 
Etcetera, etcetera, and desiderata.
Oblivion’s limbo looms dry as a drought.
The light at the end of the funnel runs out,
As the wastewater swirls down the drain,
And my hair falls away from my brain,
While the ferryman’s taking his toll,
And the calendar’s carving my soul
Into tidy, discrete prison blocks,
Where hands slap the faces of clocks,
Till you can’t tell the ticks from the tocks,
And the warden keeps changing the locks,
While my nightmares add weight to the years
By retelling my worst childhood fears
When the ragman went lurking about
By that streetlight that always was out
On the playground there by the church,
With dead eyes and black-market merch,
As the wheels on the bus go ‘round and 'round,
Like prison yard walks, but I’m still glory bound.
I curse the screws, flip a finger to the void,
And serve my penalty in splendid isolation,
Not defeated, just righteously annoyed. 
Of the benefits that come with doing time in the hole,
The best is being favored with a birdman's soul.
As I once heard a lifer say in the exercise yard,
"Freedom is being satisfied with the terms of one's confinement."

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