Retired Poem by Doug Lane

It's so much easier
to write
outside that community
I was forced
to be a part of
to pay
my rent.

Ironic, really, because
my fellow galley slaves
loved literature,
or at least were literate,
and may have been trying
to write
themselves.

They couldn't help it
if the noise, the gasping, the panting,
the heavy stink of their sweat
while rowing,
their groaning
from the lash
laid on heavily, frequently,

made them
so distracting.