Real freedom is not won
in a ****** war.
It is fought for
in small moments.

The walls are not
iron heights
and concrete made.

They are digital displays
that parade advertisements,
enticements to subdue
the brilliance of you
to a brand name.

But a free man claims
no exterior blandishments.
His passion is a forest fire
to the average candle stick.
He doesn’t give two *****
about the shirt he is wearing
as long as it fits
and keeps him warm,
while he watches the world
play whack a mole
with the styles of the day.

The walls are not
iron heights
and concrete made.

They are built up
pay day to the next payday.
Each individual tries to
sustain the quality
they have gotten used to
while slowly improving to.
So they struggle through
the tedium of repeated motions,
dull their tempestuous emotions.
Until, it takes a drunken weekend
to find the child inside that
life has brutally beaten into submission.

But a free man
feeds off the land,
takes what he makes
with his own hands,
and the help of nature’s bounty.
He fishes. He hunts.
Despite what the government wants
he immerses himself in the splendors
Of books and bountiful nature.

The walls are not
iron heights
and concrete made.

They are written by academics
and in critic’s reviews of what
other artists should say or do,
how they must bend to
a particular style or form
to acquire the praise and applause
of the frothing swarm.

But a free man writes
what he wants,
how he wants,
and when he wants.
He does not reduce
or restrict his language.
He does not hold back
letting silence serve
the servile gatekeepers.
He is his own master,
mastering his own identity.

The walls are not
iron heights
and concrete made.

I have not escaped.
I have my foot
halfway out
those iron gates.
Perhaps, I will make it there
one of these days,
or these definitions
of being imprisoned
will be the prison
that I need to escape.