It's been 7 years today since my last release from Prison.
The longest I've been home since I was 15.

I made a lot of bad choices along the way
most of which only hurt myself and my family.

Prison is no place to grow up in,
I learned how to shave in prison,
got my first tattoo, lost my first love
and learned what things like
loyalty and sacrifice really meant.

I wasted a lot of good years in there
most of them due to someone else's weakness,
fears and inability to accept the consequences
of their own actions.

It hasn't been easy and I've missed out on a lot.
But I can go to sleep and look at myself in the mirror
knowing that I never gave anyone up.
I remain loyal
and I'm still here.
Even though there are
those who wish I wasn't.

I had almost mastered the art of making my way through life without making too much noise.

I had spent the last 6 years mostly alone.
Concentrated all my efforts on trying to stay out of prison.
Worked on the writing and the poetry.
And doing all I could to just be forgotten.

I had kicked up enough dust in my early years to spend the majority of my adult life behind bars.
Came home with more tattoos, another strike and a
Monkey on my back.
I was home with greying hair, a bullet in my hand that hurt like hell, an ex wife who hated me, kids who didn't know me and friends who had forgotten all about me.

I move as low to the ground as possible now days.
I went out only when I had to.
I was just trying not to be noticed.
Hoping that maybe they'll forget about all the bad I had done
and just let me grow old in silence.

I spent  my 43rd birthday in a coin-op laundromat that reminded me of a crude jail house day-room.
Concrete floors, metal picnic tables with a large tv bolted to the wall .
Nothing was made for comfort and everything had some type of a lock on it.

She walked up carrying what looked like everything she owned.
She struggled with the door and the laundry in her arms.
I quickly stood up from my seat on the cold steel bench and offered to relieve her of some of her burden, to which she shyly obliged.
She was far to pretty to be alone and I was half waiting on a boyfriend to appear.

Nobody ever taught her how to be polite.
She didn't know what being gracious even meant until she met me.

She'd say " Don't blame me I wasn't raised right", it was our lil joke but a joke that was far  to real.

It was her beauty that saved her.
Her body was what most women would never have.
Men felt a burning desire at the sight of her.
Which she used to her advantage when needed.
It's what helped her get by during the roughest of times.

She wasn't a ***** but they didn't know that.
By the time they had realized she wasn't giving what they wanted she would have already packed her things and left for good.

Men would promise her almost everything when all she really wanted was something to call her own.

Her front tooth was chipped from a fight with an ex boyfriend.
The minor flaw only added to her rare type of natural beauty.
Light freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She had scared up boney knuckles and always wore thick silver rings on 4 of her fingers.
Naturally long eyelashes and acne scared cheeks she'd hide with cover up.

What she knew of the world was almost comical, she hadn't been anywhere and wasn't planning on going anywhere any time soon.
What she lacked in social skills couldn't compare to what she knew how to do in bed.

I gave her a safe place to rest without having to worry.
She gave me reason to shower in the morning and comb my hair before bed.

We played chess which was a surprise to me when she asked me if I played.

I introduced her to  Bukowski, Dante and Virgil.
She brought a strange type of warmth to my otherwise cold lonely apartment .
Our time was a break from the isolation and a reminder of how it was to be with another.
She brought back memories I had long ago forced
myself to forget.

Her only rule was that I never asked about her past.
What she wanted me to know she would share on her own.
My only request was that she never asked me to stop using
and when she felt it was time to move on ,she wouldn't take the time to say goodbye.

Behind these bars,
Isolated and dark

Mundane, dull, and gray
You took all of the color away

Your last goodbye,
Words still echoing inside

Dispose of me when I’ve surpassed my prime,
Expired, as has our cyclic high

Filler no more;
sole utility I served

Lying on the concrete,
Hardened and cold

Descended to this desolate place-
Chasing the mirage you portray

But it’s all just fine,
Everything’s okay,
I’m numb to climate of this bitter terrain

I’ve been here before,
Same sentence; same crime
Same demon every ******* time

A broken heart is a prison,
Life sentence till death

Liberation, a joke;
salvation, my only hope

The simple blessedness meme-complex, I bet,
what is the state of blessed, as in:
have
a blesst
day?

Voltaire, he right there, he say define y'toims t'
convoice wit me we share some air, y'know.

Peacemaker, is the primary integral role of the
being process I formed in.

Childhood drama at 2020 Common Sensed Media Low
sense making in terms of words designated,
subconsciously through designer sneezers,

say, did you hear? Does that banner still wave, o'er
the land of the free and the brave?
Are there homes for unwanted children in your town,
or do you have a town because you have a prison now,
good jobs, kids graduate highschool,
easy, union, we *** 'em guard jobs,
all kinds of jobs, prisons, boy,

a big one, can revive the real estate market in a town.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
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

You are a savage
Causing me so much damage
I remember when you treated me like a soft peach
Now I'm all bruised and battered
Like a peach in an all-night corner store
Now I'm crying on the floor
While you bang on the door
You say you love me, sure
I believe you, dad
No, I'm not mad
I don't hate you, I add
Stuck in this prison
Disguised as a castle
~23/3/21

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

                        A Song of the Lord in a Foreign Land

          “How could we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land?

                                             -Psalm 137

By the waters of the common sinks and stinks
They sat and wept, remembering their homes
Upon the razor wire they hung their hopes
          (Let my tongue be silent during roll call)

Their captors asked of them throughout the hours
Straight lines to the chow hall, well made-up bunks
On time to their classes and work details
          (Let my tongue be silent during roll call)

The lyrics of their songs were written by night
The notes and tones well-tuned to concrete walls
How could they sing songs of the Lord?
                                              How not?
          (Let my tongue be silent during roll call)

We all are exiles in a foreign land
          (Let our tongues sing praise after roll call)


(After over a year of lockdowns, volunteers are allowed back into Texas prisons today, Wednesday, Saint Patrick’s Day, 17 March 2021. Saint Patrick, too, was a prisoner.)

the heat is unbearable
but not like the cold,
without the chance to
gather my bed
for a long slumber

this meal tastes like
ice and poison,
why would they
eat this junk?
then again
maybe they don’t

just a little higher,
i can totally reach
the brim
where the small heads
look on with glee

i wouldn’t hurt anyone,
and i forgive all the
voyeurs
for sacrificing their
time to watch me
survive

i just want to
go home