Cons sharpening spoons like pros
and cooking up who knows -
Bathtub gin, crumbled Meth, and
Get Out plans.
Everyone’s got something to
run from.
Everyone’s got something to get out
from under.
To escape.
Everyone’s got something to
run from.
But only some,
only some,
have someone to run to.
I escape. Every day
he goes away…
To work. To play.
Maybe my prison
is not the jail at all.
It’s being free
night after night
and knowing I have to go back.
I have to go back
night after night,
every night, every day.
Wake from the dead
and pour a cup of dread
Do right by everyone -
do as I was told -
and get sent to jail instead.
Each day
Again, each day.
The body is a prison, with no way to escape, making all of our actions owned by the inhabitant.
Like a jail cell, every action you take in the cell can later be viewed by the others on camera.
Life can be like a prison, we can be in a situation, that we must make choices, and some may be very scary.
Decisions of truth or lies, making others look at us with big eyes, some want us to lie, others want the truth. Some tempt us with money or other items that we really want.
Some are tempted with love, or with gold, to make choices that are nothing but lies.
Walking in this life, in this body, we should take our time and really consider what is really at stake. Is our future life and happiness at stake.
Our prison body, we are in for this life, can be a blessing, so use it well, and choose health over wealth, and love over lies, make all of your life a blessing for all to see.
Lifting prayers to God, today and always.
This is no rock ‘n roll fantasy
Here is no place for chastity
This is where the hard life is at
Not just for any brat
Burning like a hellfire
They fail to inspire
They despise authority
Even though they live in inferiority
Most gang members did not finish school
They prefer a life of ridicule
They gave up school
Making each one a fool
A life of crime
Like living in slime
Crime has become a past time
Like in war time
Most gang members die young
Living a life so unsung
Yet still so young
With lives so far-flung
Living life so fast
Just getting past
They think life is a blast
Alas their lives have passed
They will be forgotten
Their lives were rotten
Talking about ill-begotten
Now they in the grave forgotten.
HUMILITY FOUND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When ego's fragile form begins to fade,
a limitless expanse of soul appears.
The boundaries that once bound and confined,
now stretch, expand, transform, and astound.
In losing the ego self, another universe is found,
a world of wonder, limitless, and esoteric.
The chains of comparison are severed;
they no longer bind, no longer suffocate either you or me.
The prison of competition is left behind,
unfettered, enlightenment grows.
In this vast and open place, humility also grows, and
a web of love and Divine interconnectedness prevail.
Please don't send me home
It's scarier out there
The world is just too loud
It's too much for me to bear
Please don't send me back
Where everyone is mad
Where no-one understands
And tells me that I'm bad
Please don't make me go
Where I am all alone
I'm begging for you all
Please don't send me home
I promise I'll be good
If you let me stay
I'll fall in line and smile
Every single day
Please don't send me home
I think I'd rather fry
I don't think I'll survive
Don't send me there to die.
[Poet’s Note : this is a wry autobiographical memory written in traditional pirouette verse viz. 2 quintains, line 5 & 6 repeat, which is the toe turnaround. I wanted to write a narrative of a weird syncopated vignette, when I was knitting a pink mohair jersey at the time of my imprisonment. I reduced the narrative to a pirouette. When in prison, one of my interrogators was knitting the EXACT jersey in the exact colour & exact wool ! ie. in the final analysis, (in retrospect) everything in human life can be reduced to a pirouette, a turn-around dance ! ]
knitting a pink jersey
mohair with cables fine
to process flying thoughts
political activist
south africa turmoiled
south africa turmoiled
security police
came with casspirs and cuffs
interrogation chamber
police knit jersey pink
~~~~~~~~~
Begin at treason acts of non allegiance
Human Speech
Business license is created to take from human voluntarily
Or otherwise
Advertising is not free speech
Use of surplus against legislation
Fraudulent bypass of poverty laws
Document theft from slaves
Slavery Acts
Calls from the job you needed
Connecting without the shove
Turning down the press
Finishing the letters in the heart shaped box
Quiting going to work
Letting yourself run out of money
Getting yourself back
the sun cooks the fences
the guards smoke and laugh
men rot behind steel,
stacked like moldy bread.
over one percent
they die—
nobody counts
except the families,
and the dirt.
a body here,
a stabbing there,
sickness in the cells
that medicine never touches.
no cameras come,
no headlines scream.
just a whisper in the dark,
and silence sells better than truth.
At first we hid in our human shells,
Frail lanterns flickering in the dark,
A few still slipped through unseen doors,
Wings beating toward a brighter mark.
But soon the skies were sealed with stone,
The stars withdrew their silver keys,
We found ourselves confined to earth,
Like birds in branches without leaves.
Mars once bloomed with rivers clear,
Venus sang in a golden air,
Yet both were broken, hushed by fire,
By hands too old, too proud to care.
So here we dwell on soil and sea,
Prisoners bound by time’s command,
Dreaming of worlds that slipped away,
Ruins buried beneath the sand.
Yet still the blossoms burn with light,
And rain restores the weary ground,
The wind is free though we are not,
It lifts our hearts with airy sound.
For though the stars are far above,
And chains of history bind us fast,
The earth is more than bars and walls—
It offers beauty that can last.
If we must stay, then let us sing,
And love the hour before it dies,
For even prisons hold their grace,
And earth still mirrors paradise.
Angola Silence (Renku)
In a silent mood
Await the pure white horses
To draw the carriage
Someday comes my turn
Laid amidst the other graves
Angola will reign
Carry a brother
Dispense final dignity
In this place of pain
the walls sweat like old drunks
union correctional, they call it—
correction my ass,
this place was built for breaking.
men bleed here, quietly,
a shiv under the ribs,
a mop bucket wheeled by,
nobody looks too long.
guards strut fat on overtime,
pockets heavy with side deals,
they sell cigarettes like gods
and laugh at the rest of us starving.
chow hall—if you can call it that—
thin stew, one slice of bread,
you walk out hungrier
than when you walked in.
nights are worse.
screams in the dark,
steel on flesh,
the silence after.
the air hums with rot,
paint peeling off like dead skin,
even the cockroaches look tired,
like they’ve seen too much.
and you think—
maybe the world forgot us here,
maybe that was the plan.
Evil little faces
In little evil places
come in from many cases
Behind the glass door mazes, do we really make changes?
Do they actually change us?
I walk by the metal cages, I've come to feel the same spaces
Humbly, I have to say this
We are all on borrowed time still
To my mama they stole,
I dont blame you for what was done
You sacrificed your life for my childhood
You fought for my right of innocence
You spoke so I could have freedom
It's not your fault
You were just born black
I'm not old enough to understand why
But i do understand your love
I feel it even in your absence
I know I'm the child and your the parent
But even black mothers deserve to be nurtured
Your hugs were always the best medicine
They always made this bleak world better
When we can next visit I'll give all the hugs so you can be happier
I promise to find a way
To make the men with cuffs pay
For taking my mommy away
Love your 'sweet baby child'
(As you always call me)
P.s I love you
It’s a place I feel off—
not wedded to anything.
Truculent.
I think in riddles
and answer in metaphors.
I dance on my tiptoes—
an adagio of agony.
Passion pirouettes
out of sight.
Tethered.
Bound by grief.
Temptation forgotten,
tempered.
It no longer exists.
It was a pas de deux,
now it’s just a deuce—
a petulant penitent,
an unwanted pardon.
The dancer stirs.
The pulse quickens
to a tango.
Recalcitrant and longing.
Unable to follow the white line
unless it’s condemned.
So the path ahead is delusional—
felt, not seen.
When will the blocks of life
build up
and make me feel safe?
I feel like I’m
in a correctional facility.
I am my own door.
I am my own jailor.
I realise I have the key.
I bury it
under the pile of shame
in the corner.
To those who would imprison me,
I know it's because you are not free.
In prison walls, I'm surrounded,
yet my heart and soul - unbounded.
Specific Types of Prison Poems
Definition | What is Prison in Poetry?
Poems Related to Prison
penitentiary, lockup, confinement, jail, dungeon, cooler, keep, pen, can, stockade, reformatory, clink, penal institution, slammer, g, guardhouse, bastille, statesville, up the river,