Best Prisoner Poems
When my muse ruled
my conscience's compass,
waterfalls of rhyming rivers
revealed unspoken secrets -
long forgotten in my heart.
Exposing vulnerable verses
from vaults where vines
had wrapped my tongue
into subdued silence.
In the Injustices of
judicial juxtaposition,
speech spoke in a
paradoxical oxymoron -
'deafening silence'
Pouring in drops of crimson,
I became a convicted cliché,
taken hostage in a
Machiavellian marketplace,
where I felt illiterate - harassed,
by insidious guards and
anapestic gangsters.
In the personification
of confinement,
where word weavers
are poetically unapologetic,
virtual villains ventured
to plagiarize my vocabulary.
An enjambment of envious
eyes attempted to burn
my anthology of alliterations,
so I buried each chapter
in a communal garden,
under a galaxy of ghazals,
hoping pantoum petals,
would bloom in scarlet
stanzas with sophisticated
syllables of rhythmic refrains.
Agitated by
artificial assonance,
my artistry is an
analogy of angst,
where cathartic couplets
of consistent consonance
care not for iambic ideologies.
My elusive elegy is the
legacy of my resistance,
as in my melancholy,
I'll forever be a
misunderstood metaphor.
Silencing intrusive ink,
to prevent another massacre.
With no concern for applause,
I've removed the
garlands of sakura chains.
For I'm no longer a
prisoner of poetry,
but my muse's musk
still remains....
I've been in prison for most of my life,
Not man made bars, I'm an abused wife.
Inspired By Epigram Contest
11-06/19
** A protest against the hypocrisy of the death penalty and the decadent environment of the prison system where a simple thief or criminal is unleashed on society upon leaving worse than they went in**
The days are short and gentle
in the pillow of truth;
gentle like rain-fallen feathers,
yet the gallows bleed
and the hangman smiles
at justice unjust,
and his lazy solution:
that death brings life
Death, brings life
to the children of judgment ---
life, then death
and prison be not cruel enough ---
awash to the brim,
undeterred ---- by the hangman's promise
Like a rat the prisoner awaits
in a cell built by cruelty
and fear ---
that our most precious things
be stolen by mere hands
By mere hands we have built this place;
shackle, lock and bar,
cold, with empty promises
and rigid worry
and desolate hope ---
we esteem the prisoner shall not return,
though his soul is filled with tears;
and the day seeming not his friend ---
alone,
the night speaks to him
yet he knows that day will come again
Who are we to poison hope?
Who are we to celebrate the pain of another?
Is this not the very thing we punish?
Oh with her sweet smile
I was taken prisoner,
cry of the castle
shackled to chains of desire
captive hopelessly in love.
© Harry J Horsman 2013
Jobless, indebted -
battles with insanity
- writes haiku shaiku
Prisoner of words I am
Chained in a cellar of sentences .... no .... lines
I'm a poet, I think images
think metaphors
similes
Prisoner of words
locked up in brainless nights where only dreams rule
blind wanderer between spoken sentences
arms outstretched
until they meet
a wall
a fork
to scratch what needs to be written
Prisoner of words
in a world that wants stories
quick media
fast food
not the chewy kind
not the slow cooking sort
not umami
not duende
I am a prisoner of words
I wouldn't want it otherwise.
***
August 3, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
“I” is just a concept made by mind. Siddhartha Gautama
Mind has to dwell in a coerced seclusion:
mind is a prisoner of the conclusion
that mind is mine. I share your letdown,
my mind. Minds cannot shatter the illusion
of the first person singular pronoun.
5/6/2019
Writing Challenge 3, August 2019- Five Lines- Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Dear Heart - Wiishkobi Ode
Send me back home where I truly belong
Cut the chains dear, please let me depart
Why does your brain keep replaying our song?
Let my melody drift to your heart
Making me haunt you is very unkind
I'm no ghost dear, please grant my parole
Why bottle me up inside of your mind?
Set me free to go dwell in your soul
I sabotage my happiness
with every chance I get
I wollow in my sadness
my fears and my regrets
I beg for love to claim me
but I am fearful of its strenght
I stop to smell the flowers
but soon forget their scent
I ache for new adventure
but make no move to progress
I dream of all that could be
but I am un-inspired yet
I have made myself a prisoner
in a cell that's dull and bleak
I view the world through Iron bars
as I sit and rot and weep
This world it cruel to use its name
Its ruler has a heart of stone,
Yet all its prisons that I’ve seen
There’s one that’s worse, that stands alone.
Its cells of grief are cold I know
Its bars are strong with rusty stains,
Yet cell on cell with trouble soul
Could not compare with simple chains.
I stand before my window’s glass
There are no bars to block my view,
There is no lock upon my door
No guard that would I run pursue.
I stand and watch the breaking dawn
Its beauty call to me to write,
Yet when I reach to take y pen
I feel the heavy chains pull tight.
Though many walled my prison cell
And bar less every window frame,
The chains of time have bound my wrists
Its shackles on each step a strain.
Though fall may linger by my door
And leaves may carpet all the grass,
I look with wish on wish to write
Through prison windows barred with glass.
I am, for that I am a super-giant a magnificent monstrosity,
A ferocious fired fury beyond the Pillars of Creation;
With a billion breaths that burn within me, and yet I am;
A calamitous candle amidst the unending universe.
A plasmatic prisoner of time-a destroyer and creator…
I am a beacon of brilliant brightness, a raging radiance.
I exist within a balanced hydrostatic equilibrium,
Upon the fear of a gravitational collapse, yet I combust;
I have witnessed much destruction and many creations,
Nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium keeps me bursting;
My rays of phosphorescence are no match for the darkness,
As my emanation comforts my children the rotating planets,
I grow weaker by the solar day for my exudation will expire me...
I am a bulb burning bright, a flashing flare about to go
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((((((((((Supernova. ))))))))
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June.29.2020
You are a star
Sponsored by~ Nina Parmenter
N/A for contest
Sorrow lies within
My heart, heavy.
Weighed down as if full of stones.
My soul, restrained.
Cuffed to the bottom of a seemingly endless well that is this shell of a body.
When did the light go out?
When did my life essence become so shrouded in darkness that I know not who I am anymore?
In a blink of an eye I have become a prisoner of this monster called Depression.
Begging for mercy, please let me feel the warmth of Sunshine's embrace.
Denied.
How can you be so cruel.
Deprivation slowly turns into familiarity.
Settled into my bones like an old friend.
I know this.
Mechanically routine.
I hear Depressions laughter as I use the last bit of strength to fight back.
Question, are you okay?
Mustering up a smile, I'm fine.
Trying to cling to this lifeline.
New feeling, hope?
Trying to convey with my eyes that I'm not
Fine.
Walking away, insides screaming, please come back.
Help me! Please
Save me.
Too late, I am defeated
I will be your prisoner
when our world stills
When our eyes turn tender
silence can fulfill
Desire will burn slowly
its love we will embrace
We'll find our eyes have opened
We'll find we're face to face
To kiss you every moment
know your every scent
I'll yearn for you when absent
These times I will lament
Our love knows every motion
it's slow in pantomime
Our love will grow deeper
across measured time
Softly I will come to you
so softly I will
Warm our breath caresses
hearts beat faster still
Time is in motion
time is standing still
Softly I will come to you
So softly I will
To kiss you every moment
know your every scent
I'll yearn for you when absent
These times I will lament
I will be your prisoner
When our world stills
When our eyes turn tender
silence can fulfill
I will be your prisoner
I will be your prisoner
1/31/17 contest Your Best Love Song Ever
Metaphors and similes flow freely from my pen
when I am scripting and scribing in poetic verse.
Across the width of pale parchment pages
the nib of my feathered pen continues to traverse.
Ink courses fathoms deep within me like life blood,
rushing through the eddied channels of my veins.
I struggle to ignore the cramping in my fingers.
There's no hesitation when writing echoing refrains
when I imprison myself in poetry.
Each stanza I carefully arrange in proper sequence
as if it's a bairn born for the creation of my story.
Sometimes my gypsy muse joins me in the dance
when I write with abandonment in wild allegory.
I never try to rein her in when we're both focused
and driven to complete a poem, oblivious of time.
With vivid imagination, romantic sonnets are birthed
as I sit penning line after line in consummate rhyme,
incarcerated at my desk until I've written the last line.
My thoughts tumble like flurries of pristine snowflakes.
With a single spark of romance my passion ignites
as each completed verse falls perfectly into place, it lifts
my need to write compositions of love to greater heights.
Day and night, I find myself a wanderer, lost in reveries
where I journey in a private kingdom of verbose amplitude.
Around each curve in the road is a new challenge to be met,
and yet, none thwart me when trysting in romantic interlude.
Rude would be the one who would disturb me
when I'm handcuffed to a work in progress.
I try to indite with some semblance, dare I call it skill or talent?
By no means am I an accomplished laureate by my admission.
As a mere poet, I do not strive to compose a magnum opus,
but a meaningful collection of verses as a worthy composition.
If by chance, my poetry is interpreted and appreciated by some
who view my emotional imagery with soulful eyes of admiration,
I will credit my gypsy muse with her conspiratorial whispers
and amorous experiences as the impetus for my inspiration.
I hold the key to unlock my self-inflicted prison door,
and used when at last my pen has been laid to rest.
I don't believe in getting angry
and arguing over things
yet there are people who do sadly
as does a bee that stings
why can't people be friends
and love as the Bible says
instead a relationship ends
tis what it does
are we doomed to this behavior
or will it one day lend
finding success and not failure
in the message we send
weary as I walk alone
in my reasoning
though heavy I carry the stone
tired as I'm weakening
soon strength I'll regain
as time passes through
and joy will remain
for now my time is due