"incarceration" poems
Forgive yourself
Perfect was never a word suited for you
Love yourself
Everything comes back to this
Love your sister
She has been picked apart, degraded, and has an internal war eating her from the inside out
Love your brother
He has a time stamp of deliverance to a life of incarceration, bullets released from an absence of sense, lack of educated, blind ambitious followers.
Raise your head
You are a Goddess created
with disarming beauty in mind.
Continue to place one foot in front of the other
You are meant and strongly designed for forward movement.
Take no steps back, do not bow down your head, do not close your mouth
In fear that judgment will fall
It will, but you must speak anyways.
Your voice is imperative
to the growth of lost girls who are unsure what real women are made of.
Your voice is imperative to the peaking of the minds of men unsure what to look for in a Queen, show him.
Your voice is imperative to the readjustment of the image of
Black Women with large voices
Black Women with high diction
Black Women with love language
Black Women with literary genius
Black Women filled with nothing less than the peace & love God has manifested within us.
Black Women
Black Women
Black Women
Who love Black men like double chocolate moist bliss
Who love White men like dark roast coffee filled with cream
Who love Latino men like Butterscotch candy dipped in chocolate
The list goes on
Black Women who love like we are bound to implode if we don't give the universe what it is that we need back.
Black Women
Your Mother
Black Women
Your Sister
Black Women
Your Friend
Black Women
Your Lover
Black Woman
Love Her.
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 12:29 AM UTC
1334
How soft this Prison is
How sweet these sullen bars
No Despot but the King of Down
Invented this repose
Of Fate if this is All
Has he no added Realm
A Dungeon but a Kinsman is
Incarceration—Home.
8.6k
Permission to speak, I am the ally of the silenced and unheard.
I am the noise you can't shake.
Two sharp points like the accents I carry on my tongue.
I slither and squirm as I observe what they have done to you.
It's a tragedy what they think of you and how arrogantly they use you for self proclaimed prophecies.
No! I am not that! I yell loudly, but only the echo replies.
Incarceration, deportation, degradation, gentrification some of the words that burn as I spit them out.
False ideologies are accepted as realities ignoring the facts.
I am not illegal and you don't have the right to label or decide.
I am not a criminal, never was.
Don't obstruct my academic path, I will jump each and every obstacle one by one.
I was born free, you labeled and shackled me with lies and hatred but I broke loose.
With my forked tongue I battle your double sided knife.
I am not content with the destructive pattern that has emerged with your avarice.
I will not **** for you and I will not die in vain.
My snake like tongue has no mercy and will not cease until I see dignity and peace obtained.
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 6:40 AM UTC
"Funny, I don't remember no good dope days. I remember walking for miles in a dope fiend haze. I remember sleeping in houses that had no electric. I remember being called a ****** but I couldn't accept it. I remember hanging out in abandos that were empty and dark. I remember shooting up in the bathroom and falling out at the park. I remember nodding out in front of my sisters kid. I remember not remembering half of the things that I did. I remember the dope man's time frame, just ten more minutes. I remember those days being so sick that I just wanted to end it. I remember the birthdays and holiday celebrations. All the things I missed during my incarceration. I remember overdosing on my bedroom floor. I remember my sisters cry and my dad having to break down the door. I remember the look on his face when I opened my eyes, thinking today was the day that his baby had died. I remember blaming myself when my mom decided to leave. I remember the guilt I felt in my chest making it hard to breathe. I remember caring so much but not knowing how to show it. and I know to this day that she probably don't even know it. I remember feeling like I lost all hope. I remember giving up my body for the next bag of dope. I remember only causing pain, destruction and harm. I remember the track marks the needles left on my arm. I remember watching the slow break up of my home. I remember thinking my family would be better off if I just left them alone. I remember looking in the mirror at my sickly completion. I remember not recognizing myself in my own **** reflection. I remember constantly obsessing over my next score but what I remember most is getting down on my knees and asking God to save me cuz I don't want to do this no more !!!"
- Delaney Farrell
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 10:48 PM UTC
I did not know such thoughts
till I lay here tightly bound
and pleasures that I knew not
till I felt your ropes around.
I did not know the freedom
that ******* could so bring
or of eager anticipating
how a riding crop might sting.
I did not know the beauty
of being in your chains
as nothing but a slavegirl
to use as you intend.
I did not know the silence
that a leather hood could give.
locked in isolation
where nothing can intrude.
I did not know the feeling
of fingers touching so,
bringing deep caresses
to inflame my inner self.
I did not know the flowing
that would be drawn from me,
as hands I could not see there
might reach so deep within.
I did not know the warming
that would so rise inside,
to make me gasp with wanting
as I your knowing fingers ride.
I did not know the parting
so widely of my thighs,
that would accept your loving
as you hard against me rise.
I did not know how deeply
you would slide into me,
as my moist and eager welcome
would take you in so free.
I did not know that *******
could make me feel like this,
to be loved in this special way
was my need you see.
I did not know the rising
that comes from deep within,
with unstoppable explosions
that blow my mind away.
I did not know of subspace
that place you send me to
where I am in another world
until I return to you.
You have been my teacher
of things I did not know,
and that I was unaware
of the need I had of them.
I thought myself so worldly
yet was so innocent,
of such dark pleasures
that you brought to life for me.
You have taught me much
of things I did not know,
that freedom’s an illusion
and incarceration’s me.
Francesca Anderssen 2018
Jan 8, 2018
Jan 8, 2018 at 5:35 PM UTC
21st century slavery: Shayn Powell
Take a look around,
It’s 2018.
What do you see?
Everything looks fine,
People striding in glee?
Look hard for it may
Be a mystery,
That we’re living through
21st century slavery.
We claim these are
The lands of the free.
It’s a fib, that’s not at
All what it seems.
Because if it were
the land of the free
than Martin Luther King may
never have had his dream.
There wouldn’t have
Been a march for
Freedom in 1963.
And Mr King wouldn’t
Have lost his life
For standing up in
What everyone
Should've believed.
Take a look around,
It’s 2018.
What do you see?
Everything looks fine,
People striding in glee?
Look hard for it may
Be a mystery,
That were living through
21st century slavery.
America, “land of the free”
Were fine we claim,
living in prosperity.
“Everyone’s equal”,
You’ve heard it too, How silly
Don’t you agree?
My best friend
Rolled his window up
when he saw a policeman.
It’s sad, But this is the
reality we live in.
“We’re equal” but we
Strip kids from their dreams
Because they were brought here
Against their will illegally.
Have some leniency,
Then again you’re
changing their scenery.
How can you do that
So easily?
And what’s this ****
we learned in history?
Jim Crow laws?
Thank god those are gone.
Or so we thought
You’re not sneaky America,
Mass incarceration is
Nothing but a plot
For a group of minorities
To be 2nd class citizens
To us all.
That’s evil that should leave
everyone appalled.
It’s time for a call
For action.
All this arrogance
Has left us distracted
From what our nation
claims to practice.
Because
Take a look around,
It’s 2018.
What do you see?
Everything’s NOT fine,
People AREN'T striding in glee.
Really look for it’s
Not hard to see
That were living through
21st century slavery.
Yours truly,
That worried white kid
Who lives in a society
That’s unruly.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 10:17 PM UTC
I. The event wall:
The quarters going coloured:
Red, yellow, limpid azure,
white unalloyed;
at the center, a dark void
lightening, radiating outward -
never breaking the event-horizon.
Reverent circumambulation
by tradition, is done clockwise.
II. Reading the tiles
Is peace in expansion
or contraction?
Incarceration. Staring at the tiles.
Acceptance or rebellion?
Time doesn't tell.
III. Prospect
You are free now:
making a mascot of you,
we have set you free.
While singing paeans
to your greatness yet,
we bemoan how
coolies and ******* are
be-spoiling our home.
Rest in peace!
We'll wait for Christ.
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 7:04 PM UTC
The eye of the hurricane
Swept through a country side
Not batting an eye
All those in it's path perish
A mosque, a person, a Muslin
Another, another, another
Until 49 were gunned down
Killed
Executed
And many more injured
Scarred forever
in·dis·crim·i·nate·ly
A finger on a trigger
Held steady
Unmercifully
Picking targets
To cries and screams
With no regard for life
Only for the shooter
To make a name for himself
His message board
His manifesto
His hate of immigrants
Muslims
Leaving in it's path
Bloodshed
A country's darkest day
His infamy
Who is this individual
The eye of the hurricane
Sitting in the middle
Teetering to the right
An extremist
Category of the worst kind
A patch of ******
Sitting in his landscape
Of his sunken mind
Incarceration
Laughing, laughing, laughing
Today, today, today
And this was his trigger
His devil
His dialogue
Today he spoke
Another, another, another
To cries
That echo
Forever
Long after the hurricane
Loses its tail
This makes me sick
I look up in the sky and ask why
Logan Robertson
3/15/2019
Mar 15, 2019
Mar 15, 2019 at 7:23 PM UTC
I turned lesser men to stone, snakes nipping idly at my dress:
I am monster, living incarceration of a profane affair.
I turned sacristy into brothel, my beauty was perverted to despair.
I am monster, grotesque face topped by a hissing nest.
As you approached, and I felt a grim shiver in my chest;
I glowered my petrifying glare,
But you were given hiding-cape', sword, winged sandals to wear,
And mirrored shield my powers to arrest.
My mask of potent shame was made:
Lips blood red and eyes of smoldering coal,
Around my face writhing serpents twist and roll.
I saw my eyes in your hand, I wailed a last serenade.
Gasping in the instant before – everything went stone cold.
I am weapon, crafting you a garden of entombed souls.
1Hades’ cap of invisibility
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 5:01 PM UTC
allocation of supreme alliteration illustrates perpetual contemplation and concentration that dictates a maligned mastication of federal incarceration of elongated complementary probation leaving you cuffed and based on baseless accusations conducted in aboriginal abbreviations masked task force concluding a course of brevity conducted in coordination then coordinating and copulating condemnation for a homeostasis of thought bought scolded eroded and shot inefficacy perpetrating cultural holocaust irrelevance somersaults galactic static of mathematical bombastic smack addict glued shut in a craft attic floral resurrection gartered section of ****** selection she moves fluid through unaltered perfection of cosmic bypass past the point of extemporaneous infinitude reciprocating fortitude of sinews congregating fabricating visuals of vitality soldering axonal membranes on the cerebellum and cortex simulation of sensual vortex demented fusion more blessed I am that which stands to understand the incomprehensible unconsidered options of racial conflicts the screaming round of unaltered copper fiber severing life from the living only now can we debunk the years
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 9:01 AM UTC
If you have just give a hint sweet,
Steps you should take in the morning
Now I do not aspire to incarceration,
Come into my wings apart
Under the shadow of thy arms I would thaw.
Who would you say smile
I would like to walk with you
If the fault is in me somewhere
I would like to change
Bleached - Bleached Like Life,
Might give you a sugar solution
Break all restrictions,
Come take hold,
Take Anywhere
Loneliness is the only one made me laugh,
Loneliness is the same cry.
Simply thought of seeing you,
Did you shook me from myself
Was slurred, but I was so long,
There just would not handle Maine
You would laugh that says,
Would walk with you,
If the fault is in me somewhere
If the fault is in me somewhere
I would like to change
You are a happy tear,
An awesome feeling
What say you, for my sake,
You do not breath the air
Dear I agree, if you are with me
Have written to you who mourn;
All the pain is gone
Are you in the shadows
Now I would like to dusk every day with you.
I'd laugh if you say so, I'd want to walk with you.
If the fault is in me somewhere
I would like to change.
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 8:41 AM UTC
Man, woman, fear, touch, kiss, scent, taste, magical embrace, ***********
exaltation, celebration, emotional intoxication, tenderness, cuddling. . .
Fear, doubt, expectation, incrimination, inebriation, allegations, regret,
concerns of damnation, impregnation, incarceration, restraining order. . .
Reconciliation, fear, Man, Woman, touch, kiss, scent, taste, embrace . . .
And you know the rest
Sep 4, 2013
Sep 4, 2013 at 1:56 PM UTC
Hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
drugs will make your brain go dull
hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
all other feelings but euphoria are null
that's until the high wears thin
then I need more in my skin
less of a person more of a drone,
less of a person more skin and bone
can't get out the bugs
can't sweat out the drugs
Hollowed in cheeks hollowed out bones
My skin and heart are full of holes
I'm still a person beneath the monster
But what if it one day consumes me?
Hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
childhood is what i stole
i used to have children
now i have child support
and i can't even support my addiction
hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
how long till the drugs take toll
dance with the devil
flirt with the monster
incarceration
clean for a moment
then it calls to me again
come back to me
come back my friend
want so badly to stay clean
but my friend the monster
needs me
hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
the monster has devoured me whole
hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
is there salvation for my soul?
i'm in prison
or a slave
is it in my veins today?
hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
out of prison on parole
hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
how much longer can i control
my veins ache with the memory
i need that constant reverie
just a little couldn't hurt
one more time
one little flirt
hollowed in cheek bones hollowed out skull
now im on the patrol
need to find more
need more cash
find another stash
empty stomach is no concern
need to **** this aching urge
when will more emerge
how long till my teeth fall out
how much longer on this route
went out one day for a stroll
and fell right down the rabbit hole.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 3:13 AM UTC
I
The stars are double-weighted tonight.
bulging, beating, they sink
from their proper lurches.
One by one across the murky
evening they sputter out.
What natural light remains
seeps from that subtly gaudy
bauble of a moon.
II
Peeled eucalyptus, ice-plant, new-mown summer grass,
dandelion, sloping hill, carved stone bench,
the view, the reflected city-light off the bay water,
white-washed near-tenements.
I am firmly locked up, chained in a bone cage
of chemically manipulated cranial plates;
serotonin, synapses, dopamine, dendrite
create a web like seaweed constricting the sea;
this computer of a head calculates, oscillates,
and processes the sensory.
III
My body is a tattered jib sail
flowing in the light sprinkling rain:
the simmer of the gale:
a hollow cathedral abandoned
by the believers:
a vessel for my marrow:
an imaginary catalyst for profundity:
an incarceration: a hull of particles
arrested: some part of an experience.
Aug 25, 2012
Aug 25, 2012 at 1:46 PM UTC
Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh
Wondering while we walk
Trembling trying to talk
Mankind mostly marred momentum
Humanity how humiliating, hiding
Forefathers frowning, from our fabricated forget
Refusing redemption, requiring rancor and retribution
Always armed, allured, awaiting angry accusations
Derailed doves, these daggers drag down
Losing level landings, lacerating learning's lifting
Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh
I implore indignation, it's incarceration of our intrinsic immensity
At the core of our conception, captivating creation captured
Anyone, everyone, afraid of the amazement accrued under our armor
Profoundness, endless as the universe, favoring our existence
Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 9:44 PM UTC
The last of my kind
There’ll be no more after me
I’m a flightless bird
With useless wings
Dumb and wild and free
Take a good hard look
At what you’ve done to me
On display
In my solitary incarceration
I pace in circles
So the camera will see
Look at my stripes fade
Take a good hard look
At what you’ve done to me
I had no fear of anyone
‘til you got ahold of me
The moon shone through the trees
A spotlight in my final serenade
No brothers left
And there’ll be no more after me
This poem has been a product of the combined efforts of myself and the lovely prrtybrd
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 6:06 PM UTC
A Presidential pardon for all inmates and the expulsion of every American's arrest and incarceration record. Change the lives of forty million people and see the economy roar the Lion's head.
What could be more, Christian?
Dec 30, 2018
Dec 30, 2018 at 3:50 PM UTC
Revival of a revolutionary spirit
What I represent?
Dem single mother ******* children
Uneducated, unmotivated, and poverty stricken
Moma pay da rent, da car note, den broke, da game sumtm' slick
So I'm young BLACK and angry, real thug-life *****
Infested communities of drugs and guns thats brought in by the government
So before I move a pack o pull a trigga just tryna win
I'm already guilty, 'until proven innocent'
Ain't dat a *****
The days as slaves and Jim Crow's segregated ways have passed,
Dey sayin'
But I only see it disguised now as a 'color blind' racial caste system
Crooked politicians and sellouts oppressing dey own kin
In the 'pursuit of happiness'
They're privatising prisons for capital
Mass incarceration
How could another life be property?
With a loss of civil rights, even after release
Take it ha you wona
I'm anti-colonialism
Everywhere the 'Albino' go he **** the land and oppress the people
Oct 1, 2020
Oct 1, 2020 at 4:58 PM UTC
Turn the other
into an object
that's where
genocide begins.
Manipulations
of the economy machines,
Sweeping labels
capture all,
That's where incarceration
to
slaughter begins.
Rapists
cockroaches
infidels
the unclean.
I put this log
into my woodstove
the pill bugs
scurrying for cover,
I feel a heart felt flicker,
Light the match,
Go upon my day,
Never looking back.
What does it take to treat
people
that way?
Where conscious
loving
living
human beings
transformed
by a look
into
pill bugs scurrying
for cover
with a fire storm,
No one
Every one
knows
is
coming.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
damp roads at night pushing and pulsing light
whip soiled water onto pack and *** from back bicycle wheels rotating furiously out of purgatory out of bleary eyes of incandescence and towards the same eyes lit by patriotism or in another sense incarceration
wheels spinning straight and directionless
sore legs denying illusion of purpose purported by a between eyebrows headache only achieved through a blindfolded walk down memory lane keys jingling from a carabiner and a misplaced confidence self corrected before it was too late to realize that reality is difficult to handle with all 5 senses and a distinction between right and wrong and being left handed but not leftist because the only thing worse that being dumb is being spineless invertebrate vampires killing sheep in the prairie and funding proxy wars while fighting for who?
wheels spinning round and round keep insisting on idealism
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 6:31 PM UTC
if i had a dream for you
a dream for anyone
anything
i'd catch it up
in my hands
kidnap it
from the air
keep it
to look at
when i'm sad
like a bitter
dandelion
i once imprisioned
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 3:06 PM UTC
A man who fought for freedom
Is frail and old yet remembered
For all his contributions and sacrifices
He made to rid all types of discrimination
In the early years a Law Degree
Seemed perfectly suiting
Boxing made him tough like a brute
But his soul-passive, polite and caring
A role-model to everyone
Who said, "Debate, no guns!"
A peace_maker for all
A teacher for all
Even in darkest hours
His humilty, nobility and responsibility
Is but a few of what we can reap of his success
27years of incarceration
All for the fight of discrimination
His sacrificed time
In quarries of lime
A day that they remembered
A day that they paraded
With happiness and delight
1994
People in queues of snakes
Waited for a chance to cast their first vote
*We salute you TATA MADIBA
Thank you for your valiant services*
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 1:10 PM UTC
Vicious cycle of incarceration led my down a dark road I've trampled people to the point of exhaustion. All I want is my mind, body , & soul to be happy. Some nights I spent in the shadows watching the world revolve around me, the feeling was overwhelming. Trespassing & thievery was my usual, from time to time I would have no normalcy. My ears were in tuned to funeral music, my eyes were focused on lust, my body was being controlled by a higher power.
Sep 29, 2019
Sep 29, 2019 at 2:45 PM UTC
Today my son
Is to be sentenced
To prison. He
Lives 23 hours a day
In a jail cell, he will move on
Steeling courage few of us
Ever have to experience.
Consider your luck.
His mental illness
never to be a crime.
Will there be light for a prism?
Where he can turn to
Other pathways
Less dark and Forge
Himself into the open
Blue sky and all the rainbows
From here on out.
On the outside we are blind
On the inside some
Are given true sight.
I cry for a rotten system
In mental health care
We own. You might
Want to pull up some buckets
For all mothers tears
Knowing the best we have
Is incarceration. How is that
America? Tired of blaming anyone but yourself?
Feb 5, 2024
Feb 5, 2024 at 9:35 AM UTC