The latest poetic offering from my prison pen pal "Conway" arrived on the back of a masterful drawing of grotesque comedy and tragedy masks haunting a grey prison cell. I admire his determination to get his artwork out to the world, despite the the prison bureaucracy which often bounces back his mail based on ever-changing criteria about envelope size and penmanship. Sadly, I don't possess a scanner large enough to reproduce it here, but the poem is below. I'm still looking for a publisher for his chapbook, so please contact me if you have a lead.

This poem resonated with my own struggles to keep God's grace and liberating promises in sight when others' harsh judgments fill my daily awareness. To "learn what I already knew" and feel in my heart what I believe intellectually--that is a big part of what it means to "work out your salvation", I think. And perhaps the first priority of Christian communities should be to show one another what it feels like to be forgiven, so that grace becomes as believable as shame.


I Already Know

Some day; I hope to shake off this wrath
exactly as a dog shakes off his master's bath
unwanted film of rules, rough cuffs and regulations
fences stretched tight to keep people in, dogs out

You know what I'm tryin to say, but not talk about
Just a quick retort, inside another useless sally port
    before, after the doors crack
exposing the exit, entrance, monkey on my back
    peering out, into this promised land
spilling from an unrevealing hand, manacled.

The blue sky, only open door, dangling above me
    Taunting, "come to me" where everyone's free

If only I believed the rhetoric, the delivery
    of phrases, phases and useless words
spewing from mouths of deadeyed mocking birds
Some day, one day I'll learn what I already knew
    come to see your view, go to see you...