This poem is inspired by one of the things I learned in prison: that everybody there is innocent. Of course, by this I mean that everybody claims to be innocent. I learned that this phenomenon is rooted in the notion that each inmate had done a long series of illegal activity — BUT, they only got caught and convicted on the one thing that brought them there. Because they had gotten away with so many things, the one time they got caught must truly be the aberration. Interestingly, a prison counselor noted a similar thing: the only difference between the jailers and the jailed was that the jailed got caught. As apparently is often the case, I was the exception, being openly proud of my guilt in an ongoing act of civil disobedience (refusing to register for the military draft). Of course, I was also my own lawyer in my trial, so I am patently a fool. This also manifested another exception, as I was the only one there that was happy with their lawyer.
This poem also reflects somewhat on the process and meaning of rehabilitation, which, of course, has almost nothing to do with our corrections system in a carceral state. But alas, who am I to speak; I am all about pun-ishment…
Locked in Prism
Have you ever been
Locked in prism
He wore his stole
With an unqueer pried
A hundred times over
Never catching
That elusive justice
Except that won time
An unjust lottery
A story tolled
Agin and agin
As if
Ever dumb founded
The hole lot
Down to a person
In crowd sorcery
How ever pick
With sow many lessens
Taken
To heart
Too master
What is their
Too under stand
Know fateful exception
Perhaps in due time
As owed
As sing
Sing
As sum wear
Over the rainbow
Never again
