Ramblings from a prison cell
LETTER TO SISTER (Extract)
I recommend this therapy for anyone who has trouble with patience and imagination. It’s a lot cheaper than those $50 an hour sessions so popular stateside.
Ironically I find this life easier in many ways than my excursions to central America. The food is better here and it’s served without you hunting for it. Accommodation is infinitely better, cleaner and bug free. Exercise and games are more frequent plus the prison lingo and the northern drawl is much easier to comprehend than any Spanish dialect. It’s a little harder to justify the amount of time spent in contemplation however I believe in three months I will have broadened my education and understanding of people considerably with much less risk to life and limb than my tours to Nicaragua. Hopefully I’ll only ever have a repeat this exercise as a result of civil disobedience and never again from my stubborn contempt for irrational laws.
IN SEARCH OF THE LOST VOICE
This is me speaking I give you my word,
A stolen voice sounds quite absurd.
I confess to have borrowed an expression or two,
But a wise man once told me that something new,
In thought and speech is extremely rare.
If it don’t sound like my words I don’t care,
What I say ain’t unique but it’s honestly me,
Look behind my words if it’s me you wanna see.
15. LIFE OUTSIDE GOES ON
After six weeks in prison I received a letter telling me that a recent girlfriend had died in a house fire in Canada. It was devastating not being able to communicate or grieve with friends.
DEATH
Oh death
You rotten thief
taking what belongs to life
destroying our dreams
leaving us grief
on an island alone in oceans of tears
death you criminal that everyone fears
You appeared to me a summer bird on the wing
I can close my eyes and still hear you sing
your love songs
your love
your songs
love
MAYDAY
You didn’t stop to say goodbye
no last hugs, no wife, no best wishes
no time to do the things we planned
no parting words of love unsaid
no forwarding address, no last minute packing
no passport, no ticket, no toothbrush, no future together
did you receive the last letter I sent?
if I’d sent it sooner
if I’d only said more
if I’d known you were leaving
I’d have picked up the phone and called you direct
OUR FATHER
Our father you artful dodger
hallowed be thy game
May my letters come
May my bird be done
in nick so I can be in heaven
give us this day more than stale jail bread
and forgive us our sloppy slop spills
as we forgive them that reject all appeals
lead us not into isolation
but deliver us from all this evil
for yours is the power to get us parole
forever and ever
Omen
BAD NEWS
In the headlines it sounds like the results of a game,
The details are different but the stories the same,
Thirty-two killed in the Clapham train smash,
Three hundred or more with today’s plane crash.
An artist is murdered they shoot one more cop,
We think we’re in danger as the stories never stop,
An old lady is raped, a young boy disappears,
They die without dreams while we live with our fears.
There’s a threat to our health without any doubt,
We don’t see their cries and we don’t hear them shout,
But compared to the third world where suffering is criminal,
Relatively speaking our risks are so minimal.
They rarely make it to the national headlines,
Only survivors reach the pitiful breadlines,
They count their dead in thousands not tens,
While we read of our disasters they’re burying their friends.
LADY ON THE BOARD
A boardroom is a kind of den, Wholly comprised of big fat men,
Which women mainly get to see, When bringing in the lunch or tea,
But one or two I would applaud, Have brought a lady on the board,
Either out of great acumen, Or as their statutory woman.
Either way the eye detects, Unexpected side effects,
Which tend to make the boardroom rock, To a massive metabolic shock,
And leave the gentlemen regretting, A problem of their own begetting.
For here the chauvinistic mould, Seems inexplicably inclined,
To place in two main categories, The ladies central to their worries,
Disparaging behind their backs, Their bomb shell or their battle axe.
The bombshell image is a figure, Like Marylin or even bigger,
Elegant but only just, Clothed about the thigh and bust,
Offering like a penthouse miss, Some promise of prenuptial bliss.
But contrary to male assumption, That pretty blondes have little gumption,
The modern version boast degrees, Like MBA’s and PHD’s,
And with an intellect equally as real, As the most potent sex appeal.
A combination which the men, Never hope to see again,
Is envy coupled with desire? They watch the goddess rising higher,
Until with sunlight in her hair, She occupies the President’s chair.
These ancient overtones of sex, Cannot prevent what happens next,
When doors to boardrooms stand ajar, To women as they really are,
Good and bad like all the others, Of their gentlemanly brothers,
Revealing – and it really hurts, The irrelevancy of their mini skirts.
A STONES THROW AWAY
For liberty there is a cost, A broken skull and leather cosh,
From the boys in uniform, Now you know which side their on,
With backing, with blessing, From earthly gods not heaven,
A stones throw away to it all.
From striping skin with rhino whip, It’s the kind that must be stopped,
Before they’ve taken all we’ve got.
With loving, with caring, They take great pride in working,
The stones throw away from it all.
Wherever honesty persists, You’ll hear the snap of broken ribs,
From anyone who’ll take no more, Of the lion bastards roar,
In Chile, In Poland, In Johannesburg or South Yorkshire
It’s a stones throw away………and now we’re there.
WWII
When will they learn to look forward not back ?
Leave killing behind and get on the peace track
The war is over the ’40s are gone
Time to look forward and sing a new song.
Renegades Escapades 