A Former Convict's Diary Entry In Verse Poem by Thomas Bates

my voice
is hued with
hesitancy
but
my integrity is sound.
I'm tired of making day-to-day concessions,
entertaining bullshit rumors
and plans, new ideals
that don't make a man,
twisted and unfair,
being racially motivated bargains.
I know now for a fact
I'd be glad to not have to
satisfy
any petty demands from these sort of men
ever again,
for
the rest of my life.
most here are starved of hope
and pushed back and forth and around
by
the pressure of their peers.
there's a death to every aspect of this
freedom (that's been lost) .
the Mexicans are heavy on their feet,
as restless
as they were lawless;
and they are feeding off of stress
for the relief of boredom -
or so
it seems to me.

freedom is spoken about dreamily
yet
apprehension exists; the recall
of memories
re-emerging
like bittersweet roses
from lying mouths, stories
of innocence, injustice and
many, not few, exaggerations.
sweet and poorly thought-out fantasies and daydreams
take away from the near silent night times
by way of some sort of entertaining value.
laying in the dark,
you can hear their voices vocalize many tales and things
in the attempt to quiet the yearning.
longings of the soul call to heavens above
while the perils of man
transform from hawks
to doves like captive hopes set free
like futile bodies
standing either justified or picked apart -
a never-ending execution in sequences
enlarging or destroying
the craving for love
replaced with bitterness
or a dismal falling short of faith.
to enact the ridiculousness of jail, a stage not alien
to the over dramatic.