The future looks
bleak during dark mornings. I put pen to paper,
nose to book upwards of fifteen hours, watching capers
of those supposedly working in our favor. I savor
the imagination’s production of burning restaurant flavors
and hear tinkling glass; while I smell tear gas and blood
flowing to the rhythm of heavy boots, batons and metal slugs.
The sky is overcast with concrete and filibusters
for social reform to keep populations below muster.
My bed is lonely steel covered in vinyl, wool and mesh bags.
Hope dangles just out of reach as toes scrape concrete
and firsts still occur for people with a hundred fifty years complete.
I wonder if anyone notices the shade of dark mornings
where marginalized humans are assaulted with barked warnings
from police who fear for their lives.
My accusers expect me to take full responsibility
for lack of opportunity and call it accountability.
For freedom, I must take the thoughts of my oppressors,
make them my own, and make them sound fresher.
Meanwhile, thousands fall ill and dozens die
for want of physical distancing.
Wrists in a manacles or in a mattress suit singly made
for isolation where problems get buried like graves
without help
and nothing gets done to reduce this time or ease my mind…
I scribe long stanzas for dark mornings made darker
by politician up service and hatred designed by martyrs.
No one has to answer for infected bacon,
chicken , or beef, or placing bets on illness and death.
Don’t hold truck with swine, edible or otherwise, yet
I am begrudged walking up life’s steps unless
I stare a cop’s gun in the face for my next breath.
I write text
and cautionary tales to catch recognition whenever I represent
and can smell the spray paint of murals forgotten and spent
by hatemongers spoiled rotten by privilege and racism
fueled by false doctrines passed through lies and plagiarism
that are accepted as truth.
To break this conversation open, people have to be willing
to listen during dark mornings without any killing.
Art is the way. Art connects us to world issues misused
as ballistic missiles to rupture tissues socially abused.
My pen
twitches as my imagination grows and my patience wears thin.
My lyrical graffiti coats walls with pictures ignored
by bureaucrats who prefer we grocery shop at liquor stores.
I scribble my dreams in notebooks and build stories that teach
the disenfranchised about every single social contract breach,
and to put the powers-that-be on notice. My hope is
to help untie the world with each coordinated opus.
My focus is to write rhymes that bolster the hopeless
and nurture social orphans, the abandoned, the homeless.
We’ll pry open the blind eyes with truth come alive…
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Here are our ground rules:
- You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
- No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
- No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
- No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
- No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
- Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
- If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
- If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
- Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.