The car is broken:

garage sentence. After that --


it is free to ride.

My eyes forced open by the white noise of the radio.
It's 7:00. A new day has come.

I get escorted to the line to get a plate.
It's time for my breakfast.
Fill up my stomach without a daily appetite.

I surrender from the visiting room.
His face from the clear glass seems too pretentious
I can't even understand his speech through the telephone.

I try to go out to see the sun and it's scorching.
Play some sports with other striped people
And they get disappointed.
I try to say a prayer I can't finish.

It's just another day to do nothing.
I let myself be incarcerated.
In my head.

There are degrees of confinement,
And escape is not a crime.
But without a realignment,
I'm resigned to pantomime.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­     A Man with a Broom

Leaving his broom in the corridor
He came into class and sat for a while
He was worried about anger management
He had shot up a nightclub after all

That was after his brother was murdered there
He gets out in twelve days, and he is worried
He has passed over half of his life in prison
He hasn’t seen his son in over nine years

He said he has learned to place God first
Some of it might be true

sometimes the prisons that hold us
have no walls ceiling or door
we are our own jailer
judge and jury
we’re the only ones
can set us free

In the world outside I was a rich man’s son
Behind these bars I am still a rich man’s son
My crime is more serious
But my lawyers more expensive

My food comes from home
My bed sheets are fresher
My loo stinks lesser
Because my **** smells sweeter

What I miss is who I could have got
with a little more patience with a little more love
But what I miss is myself
I will never be the same because I have killed a man.

What will I amount to
When I can’t take the heat
And crack under the pressure
Constantly haunted by preying eyes
Locked in on their target
A relentless weight
Seeping in every pore
And you are blind to it
Oblivious even

Perhaps it is imaginary
But it comes from all over
And it planted a seed
Which has grown into a weeping willow
Of soul breaking pressure
It is the barred door of my mental prison
The gravity to my butting wings
It is dragging me down
Whenever I try to fly

So tell me
How I can escape my prison
And defy gravity

In prison, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are birthday cake,
and ramen noodles a succulent meal.
In prison, everyone's given shower shoes,
but pillows you have to steal.

In prison, the "beds" are worse than the floor,
the "blankets" giant SOS pads.
In prison, lice goes around like soup du jour,
and **** talk spreads like mad.

In prison, all you see is gray,
color only lives on your screen.
Now you're picturing us watching a 60-inch all day,
but it's only 13 by 13.

In prison, there's no such thing as steak, there's no such thing as meat.
Almost everything that resembles either is fake.
Real milk would be a real treat.

In prison, you still need money,
or you go to bed hungry each night.
It's seriously not funny.
Three small "meals"a day  
isn't right.

In prison, if you don't lock it down, another con will steal it.
There's more than enough desperation to go around,
and everyone can feel it.

In prison I was years ago.
I'm a different person today.
But the shame felt from being forced to bend over, spread my legs, and cough,
well that's never gone away.