The Old County Stockade In Tampa Florida Poem by James McLain

How could I not watch I was a child
A child of seventeen
I was alive but weak having not seen
the sun
since I last went to court.

The County stockade on Clark Street in Tampa
When I was there was run by
Colonel Parrish.
And we under age by four or five year's
were under constant attack
by a trusty called banana and here is what
I saw.

Over crowded four teen-ager's in a two man cell
And I
learned early not to sleep near the Bar's.

In the middle of the night
When the red light was on he would come.
Huge white eye's
And his middle finger was abnormally large
Long and black.

The Bar's were flat
Flat and thin darker than night
And so quite
you could hear the cock roaches rubbing
Their wing's.

I could smell the Coco Butter lotion bought
from the commissary
Down the long length of the hall
And the squishy noise that was made by a man
Named banana
Moving in and out of one young
White boy who was sleeping against the dark bars.

Palletable fear such as this one can taste
As the smell of his feces
drifts down the hall to the rest of U.S.

In this one of Florida's many garden's of death
Without looking for hell these children found it.