My pen pal “Conway”, who is serving 25-to-life under California’s “three-strikes” law for receiving stolen goods, has sent me an abundance of exciting new poems this month, some of which I share below. He has also been writing dark-humored stories about prison life, which I have encouraged him to submit to the PEN Prison Writers contest. If my readers know of other publication opportunities for incarcerated writers, please leave me a comment below.
The Door Miser
Sleeping ice
walked the pregnant rain
with mud.
Lighting barbed steeples
dragged shattered guitar strings
while a Horn bled my breath…
Clay eyes, blunt lips
growling voices
that died
howling like the wind
in search of Ozone…
Chase this dim-witted drunkenness
overcome by the ages
locked inside an hourglass
when a spider webs knots
yanked the darkness out
from under freeform footsteps…
Breaking down again
in the voice of bruises.
But they never belched
like: an Orphans sin
in the way-layed wilderness
or a maniac on the freeway
speeding through stopped traffic
at Rush hour…
This interminable Toilet of
a sacred food stop
right between you and I
inside this Homeless broken sky, or
doomed door of denial…
Glass days visions
just offer an Iron failure
while tears lonely language
can only desire
the world…
Think hard about testing
a terrified dictation.
Arresting these wheels
for too many years
as even the moon
considers my prison
while shivering…
When the Door miser
crawls up my spine
again, to suck on
my nerves…
****
fell, into the ashes burned
when remains of my father
were turned to mud in a day
Kabashed his world into an ashtray
then washed that mother fucker away
lost, corroding through the pain
bereft and rusting in the rain
on the wrong side of right
from six feet under this grass
left to wonderful blunders
while sucked inside a riptide
the absence of fear
in here, does not prove courage
or discourage the deer
caught in the headlights
when a deck is shuffled
those cards are dealt, but
it’s how you play the cut
or gamble on, a “Supposed” losing hand…
****
Gag Order
How do I make my tongue tell it?
Choking in this bitter dungeon
now, can you smell it?
Desperately desiring to describe
a moment to share
gagging like a dog in a fight
(mouth full of hair)
Boundaries eternal, are forced inward
further in strife
constricting our death
out of breath for life
Screaming the whispers
below this cold sweat
Spilling those empty jars of regret
saving that craving, of nothing
Forever…
Now we know who the senbsile one is here. Great post!