counting the years     relentless

silent     muster after muster

stepping in     stepping out

days scratched into blue-stone

here     there     an occasional

blade-in-the-back

suicide     conversion     tears

blood     remorse     vengeance

stain the inside    inside

recidivists’ merry-go-round

through broken     untold stories

while behind each eye

the hidden child sours     mocks

my twelve years is vesuvius

this cell's ground to freedom's peak

these stones on which I mark my time

each scratch     a step up

where every man gone before

climbed his measure

JACKIE TWIST WAS HERE. 1964

this cell's a path     every prisoner

a mountaineer

down the years

the screw's pot-belly

requires uniform to suppress

impress     rattle keys

footstep the tiers:

oppression's symbol

the cager of time     of crime

locking in     locking out

keeping safe from all

that cannot be contained

only for a time     concealed

the jellied pig's head

the obedient snarl

the baton's rage

the boot's revenge

regulation's a tart-nazi

patroller of bars

of walls     of rocks

the official story incarnate

knows not what he does

only why     goblin of the locks

then there' s yesterday's distance

her blue eyes remembering less

where cameras spy

and finger's lock     eye to eye

through wire     through cages

tears of a doomed love

of passion un-quenched

of jealousy     of rages

separated by justice

one love     imprisoned

the other     not     retrospect’s

the ages     the joining of limbs

the deep kiss after ejaculation

when all was romance

pregnant     hot

now poisoned by separation

and tattooed     for what?

to measure? sometimes not quite

sometimes the pain     the loss

so choices are made

redemption read     hope attuned

poetry lost     and sometimes

found     where mostly the rot

with its language of fuck you!

stands its ground