Clang !!
The metal door closes.
Bang !!
Abandon hope all ye
Who enter here.
High barbed wire walls.
Disenfected scrubbed floors
Clanging banging sound.
Resounds all around.
Wearing white and light blue
To see who’s who!
Friend or foe ?
Made to stay.
Or free to go ?
Time hangs. What what a drag !
A minute feels like an hour.
In the yard to smoke a fag.
Also to feel the Sun’s power.
Feeling the prison blues
Missing family and home.
Glad they are not in my shoes.
Feeling isolated and alone.
Two hundred and thirty of us.
Banged up in here.
Shooting the breeeze
Cracking jokes.
Making one smile to please.
Passing time with a tease.
We are all blokes
Without our folks.
Room of one’s own
In the main wing.
Own music box
Even a drawer for socks.
Locked in at nine.
Reading, thinking sleeping time
Six thirty key in to unlock.
Everything regular as clockwork.
I’m the jerk who did the crime.
Now gotta do the time !
Trying to find things to do in the day
So as not to give up hope.
To survive and not go astray.
So outside I will be able to cope.
Get a skill and a job
Hold my head up high.
Not go out and rob
Make my own money and get by.
Get back to a normal life
Be at peace with no more strife.
Roger P. Read
Northward Prison.
Grand Cayman.
21/6/ 2019.
