prison

Sing Sing

Folder: 
Positive Thought

*

On a branch

outside Sing Sing

trying to cheer her

favorite prisoner

a bird sings

 

saiom shriver

 

Footnote: Sing Sing is a NY State prison, located in Ossining New York

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Abandoned Child

Folder: 
Poetry

My brother died,

And in his place;

I was born,

But I was repelled.

 

My mother threw me from the table,

Abused me, both mind and body.

My father never present,

And if so, he ignored me.

 

They left each other fast,

'cause mother was a lesbian.

But my father needed a woman,

For his children and as a housewife.

 

The second was quite alright,

Even if she made me eat axis.

Only my sister I couldn't see,

That became off limits.

 

After years they had their divorce,

And then came the third, the most terrible.

My wicked stepmother,

The greatest dictator.

 

She tried to strangle my brother,

Then father did interfere.

She put me in the sanitarium,

With false motives, my fear.

 

Firstly in a crisis-centra,

'cause I run away from home.

Then in the sanitarium,

Where I for six months did roam.

 

In the sanitarium,

Provided with medication.

By which I lost my memory,

Crawling in the emptiness of chaos...

 

Regularly I suffered blackouts,

By which I saw nothing.

Not knowing what I did,

Much like sleep-walking;

And strange vistas occurred.

 

I wasn't suffering delirium,

Is what the doctors told.

So all this time,

I was in the asylum for no reason.

 

Then I had to go to boarding-school,

Where I developed something bad: anger.

I wanted to kill another, a female;

And Nyarlathotep, I am sorry;

Maybe I didn't wanted to commit this act,

But I had to from Satan...

 

What happened was unforeseen,

'cause my room was now aflame.

The building completely in axis,

The police came to arrest me.

 

A year and a half in prison,

Locked away in a cell, in Hell.

A year and a half terror,

The bondage of society.

 

When I got out, there was another project,

Named room-training.

I had to work in a factory,

But that didn't end well...

I started to mutilate myself,

Which I learned in the sanitarium.

They send me to the hospital,

To the psychiatric division.

 

Then again to the crisis-centra,

Which I didn't liked at all.

As if I had to start over,

This was too much overall...

 

Through the open door I escaped,

And from my last money;

I bought a train-ticket,

Which brought me to Ramses.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

My biography in poetry-form.

The Formless Son

Folder: 
Star Crusher Prime

It no longer has a true form;

the original was absorbed by the hatred

that became the imprisoned soul,

The child locked in the depths of sorrow

and chained to the walls of darkness.

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Alcatraz

Alcatraz Penitentiary is located in California in San Francisco.

It became a Federal Penitentiary about eighty years ago.

Alcatraz was the prison where Al Capone was sent.

He wasn't happy about the place where he went.

Alcatraz had four wardens, they were James Johnston, Edwin Swope, Paul Madigan and Olin Blackwell.

Machine Gun Kelly, Mickey Cohen, Robert F. Stroud and many other criminals were sent to this jail.

Alcatraz is located on an island and was believed to be escape proof.

But in 1962, three men may have shown us that that wasn't the truth.

They escaped but were presumed dead but it's possible that they survived.

Their bodies were never found, nobody knows for sure if they're still alive.

Alcatraz closed in 1963 because of high maintenance costs and a poor reputation.

This wasn't a good prison to be sent to, believe me that's no exaggeration.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

This is a true story.

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Pen A Tin Cherry

Have you slipped a cog? 

Do your gears grind? 
Are you not right?
Are you not firing on all cylinders?
Has your Goat been Gotten?
  Was the Sacrificial Lamb of Imagination
on sale for 50 cents a pound that day?
  Was Clarity of Mind picked clean
by the time you reached the rummage
sale of Purpose?
  Has your Train of Thought de-railed
and went over the edge 
hitting every branch of Broken Reason 
on the way down,
only to sink to the Ocean Floor of
un-productivity?
  Did you then make every attempt 
to rebuild that train
with the rusty tools of Mediocrity, 
only to realize what you re-assembled was
the equivalent of stanzas of Mechanical Gibberish?
  Have you stubbed brain-toe
on the wooden leg of the chair of Profound Vision, 
only to visualize foot-in-mouth does not taste 
anywhere as bad as it sounds?
  Have you ever been diagnosed with 
Incontinence of the Mind, which is only any fun
if you've already been diagnosed with 
Diarrhea  of the Mouth? 
Have you been caught forging Checks
of Inspiration and found guilty 
in the Court of Flaw, and sentenced to 
serve time in the Penitentiary  of 
Useless Contemplation? 
Locked away
Bars barricading a 
bleak ramshackle brain.
Prisoner of mind.
Starving.Delerious.Naked.
  and then you hear the sound of a shofar 
A grand vision.
The city limits,
on the cellular level; 
an anthill.
Abandoning the colony 
for a crumb.
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The Ballad Of Winchester Jail

I would not stand nor raise my hand,

But sat in sullen gloom,

As men in dress and wigs impressed

my vices on the room,

And as my fate was meted out,

Went meekly to my doom.

 

A sentence of imprisonment,

Was deemed a fair riposte,

For months of social deviance,

Four months of life it cost.

To such a place no soul should face,

Or threshold ever cross.

 

In menace and with gravity,

The transportation came,

To consume me in its confines

As the jailer called my name,

And once aboard my soul was lost,

I'd never be the same !

 

The shadows of the prison walls,

Came lurching into view,

And confessed to keeping secrets in,

As high walls often do.

Not only do they keep in fear,

The world they keep out too.

 

With scandalous abandonment,

One man bemoaned his fate,

Whilst the warders kicked their polished heels,

Against the heavy gate,

And ushered in us startled lambs,

With smiles swathed in hate.

 

And once inside the walls, we trod

a path well trod before,

On landings steeped in misery,

Where men were men no more,

But paid the debt society,

Decreed was owed in law.

 

And on the Sabbath sat as one,

The Sinner and the Screw,

That each may sin no more we prayed,

Upon the aged pew.

That each might clear his debt with He,

To whom each debt is due.

 

We slept on beds of solitude,

In shallow fitful rest,

Enveloped by the shadowed bars,

Each cell a morbid nest.

Yet every eye must seek to sleep,

And every soul must rest.

 

And once in sleep to dream of peace,

Where peace to dream is rare,

Where in that maudlin maze of men,

Foul dirges filled the air,

And how it pains the ears to hear,

A brother in despair.

 

To listen as a bitter breath,

Is drawn from captive lung,

To every awful sound thats sent,

From sharp and savage tongue,

Thats been composed by broken hearts,

And through a tear been sung.

 

We should not laud the law-breaker,

Nor celebrate his crime,

But how should men be bettered when,

Reform is judged on time,

And calls for penal overhaul,

Requested in a rhyme. 

True Freedom

Trapped alone in a cave,
Our freedom we still save,
As our lives are inscribed and trapped away,
As a bottle of dried ink.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

The third line here is a bit long. I muddled over keeping it as trapped, changing it to inscribed, or to keep both. I decided to keep both:
Inscribed helps to lead into the last verse, and give us more of a hint than the "ink" as the final word. It also develops the last line into an actual poetry verse and not just a few words in a line.
Trapped helped me indicate to the readers that the writer was indeed trapped in a cave, however they still retained the freedom of writing their thoughts. That is true freedom. Without this, the readers would only have the first word to indicate that the character was in a cave; hardly enough (as readers normally only trully enjoy the poem starting from the second verse, and to catch that they would need to reread it; you don't enjoy the magic of it nearly as much the second time around) to express that.

 

So I needed both of these. I also originally had "dried" replaced with "buried" in the last verse, and the writing would be buried, as would the writer. However, the poem only indicated that the person was trapped and not  caved in. Among other things, this could lead to quite a bit of confusion without explanation.

Latent Prince

 

 

..............

 

Part I of II

 

 

This is the story of Larry Joe Prince

And the way Arizona stole his innocence.

It is written with hope that there may come a day

When a wise judge will grant him his moment to say

All the things so conveniently left out of court,

Made American “justice” look more like a sport,

With a high-priced attorney that didn’t think clear,

And the false testimony of one with much fear,

And the state prosecute thought “I’ll surely reach fame”,

He said, “Hell, I don’t care who the state wants to blame,

It’s a paycheck to me; I don’t care about truths,

It’s my ego I feed, I’m a low lying sleuth!!”

 

So they all drew their “guns” on that guy Mr. Prince,

Absolutely no shred of secure evidence,

They proceeded to send him to death row to sit,

For the murder of one that he did not commit,

And the biggest and worst sin of all that was done,

Was the way that the people held on to their “guns”,

They embraced all the lies to evade what was clear,

As revenge prevailed justice with each little tear,

And for those in the grave who just watch from above,

With no longer a voice to teach them that real love,

Is not proven by putting the blame on a man,

Just because he is there….cause the courts and you can,

 

See the proof of one’s love speaks out so very clear,

Even after the grave when one’s body’s not here,

You will hear their soul cry, and you’ll then know for sure,

If they’re resting in peace or they’re haunted some more.

 

There are families that hide from life’s reality,

The dead man in this case begs you hear his soul’s plea,

Make amends for the errors you’ve made in the past,

And put down all those stones, and those already cast,

If this dead man could speak he’d have something to say,

Of the circus that ran through the courtroom that day,

And if not for the dead man then do it for you,

Cause we all have to answer to God what is true,

Larry Prince knows he’s clear and he wins either way,

                              Cause he’s INNOCENT judge, the state’s in disarray.                                

So please read all with care on this day we implore,

Please don’t look at this life as a game where you score,

It’s integrity that is of stake in this court,

And it’s not mine or yours it’s this country’s that’s short

Of a quality no longer active today,

If it dies, it’s the lives of our loved one’s…they’ll pay.

Take your time, read it all, and be true to your heart,

And we’ll all pray it’s not too late for a new start.

 

 

Part II of II

 

 

They all loved cocaine but they hid it from Dad,

He just couldn’t believe that his kids could be “bad”,

So his eyes he did close, and they stayed tightly shut,

While his best offspring died with that stuff in his gut,

And they said, “It was murder”, and placed the blame there,

Yes, it’s true ‘bout that bullet and blood in his hair,

And the roots of that crime have been hidden so well,

By the real guilty ones with the lies they did tell,

For those self-righteous ones that just stared and stood by,

And condoned this deceit without batting an eye,

For the cowards that watched as the killers went free,

Be aware this could happen to you or to me,

And your sons or your daughters could one day be led

To a place where they wish they would rather be dead,

So now don’t be afraid to let truths in your ears

When your children are hurting with eyes full of tears,

Don’t you cower or shudder, don’t whine and don’t wince,

And remember the story of Larry Joe Prince.

 

Written in parts, from 2000-2002

Original Copyright 2002 

Registration Number / Date:

                   TXu001112792 / 2002-12-02

 

..................

 

07/21/13 ©

 

*

Author's Notes/Comments: 

The story of how justice can go awry when emotions rule instead of justice ruling.

 

http://www.postpoems.org/authors/nightlight1220/prose/953553

 

...........

mass segregation

 

 

...............

 

this heinous monstrosity of segregation,

that drains the blood, sweat, and tears 

from generations of poor, illiterate, and downtrodden,

rapist of family values, and murderer 

of productivity and hard working hands, 

the dream of 5 year old boys whose aspirations 

of being like daddy wind him up on a dime bag street corner,

grappling frazzled bits and pieces, 

the remnants of a worn out dream, 

passed down through a shackled and indoctrinated 

system of beliefs twisted by the hands of greedy governments,

and corporate schemes that trade lives for money.

 

this heinous monstrosity of segregation,

convincing mothers they are better off alienated 

from their children,

and that a father's life for his son or daughter

is worth nothing more than three meals and a cot,

a place to rot, and a sacred book of scripture only given

to wash the sins of those hands that profit

from the years of ones held captive and sometimes murdered

for crimes unworthy of the time,

hours and years robbed from innocent loved ones

who pay the burden of the brainless zombies

taking pride in their jobs that torture the downtrodden.of societies

in every nation.

 

this the system we take pride in, 

that we divide in, 

husband from wife, father from son,

left with no remaining choice in the end,

but to sever all ties completely from everyone,

draining any scintilla of scraps 

from the family 'till of loving plenty',

no leftovers from the dinnertime table of togetherness

savored for a child in need of 

what it means to awaken to the sound of unity,

a now lost and forgotten concept taught only 

in lieu of a desire for mass destruction and for-profit policing 

of innocent citizens,

where are the people who say they care about the children?

 

 

 

5:36 AM 7/11/2013 ©

 

with inspiration from 'riddles'

http://www.postpoems.org/authors/belial_lair/poem/945997#comment-402731

 

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Author's Notes/Comments: 

This poem was inspired by the following article about the ongoing plight of prisoners for the right to be individual, and not belong to any gang.

 

http://solitarywatch.com/2013/07/10/faces-and-voices-of-the-california-prison-hunger-strike/