Prisoner Poem by Patrick Frazier

How long must I live in disgrace?
The blistering madness of this place
I am two beings sharing one body
The demon is whispering behind my eyes:

"Wake in the cold
Work in the cold
Back hunched and fingers bleeding"

I'm wearing this body thin
Shedding skin like a serpent
For each of us in eternity
As each of us in time
Into which animal body
Returning to divine

Which new form
For heaven's sake
Will make the foundations quake

I'm a rising phantom of blue flame
Passing through cell walls
Starting fires among the twisted metal piles
And blowing the ash of burned men
In no less need of redemption as them

Woe to me, the immortal
Who cheated death
And tidal waves of tragedy
Keep me from rest

For in her eyes, an ocean
And in that ocean, a corpse
Wondering if I feel remorse.