Lawrence Hall
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https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                    Well, Hey, Prison, Right?

                     When, with the chalice in his hands, the priest
                     came to the words ‘…receive me, O Lord, even
                     as the robber’, nearly all the convicts fell kneeling
                     to the ground with a jangling of fetters…

                           -Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead

The first-period were really bad today
But, hey, prison, right?
The second-period were really good today
And, hey, prison, right?

After class a man arrived solo for Mass
And knelt before the Altar that isn’t there
The chaplains asked him if had been to supper
“No, but I’m not going to miss Mass.”

The man would not leave for his supper
Until the chaplains promised him again
That Mass would not begin without him
And it was so
                                     And that, too, is prison