About the Poetry Blog
The poets featured on this page are currently incarcerated, and many of them are in federal prisons far from home. Your feedback is a valuable source of motivation and connection to the outside community. These messages will be passed on directly to the author. Comments may not appear immediately on the site, as our team processes them to mail to the poets.
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Me and Jim Crow
By PJ
Twenty years in ADX.*
I’m asked, a lot, one question:
How long have you been here?
First, let me tell you something I know:
(Feared, is the unknown;) it is the confined person’s ghost.
When I was told: “the short trip,”
I couldn’t wait to get with “it”;
to act a fool.
For two decades, really, I haven’t moved.
It seems: I’m going in circles, but before
you jump to conclusions, understand: basically,
we all (are going in circles). Some big,
some smaller than others; we live by: clocks.
The earth revolves around the sun; I crossed a lot.
Administrative Maximum is a microcosm of society.
All the problems, symptoms, epidemics in our cities
are gathered here (again), interacting.
What wasn’t solved there,
resurfaces here.
It’s an environment where: you’re constantly
fighting insanity.
That, accompanied with: maintaining your safety
and trying to stay alert.
As an African American today,
in the Criminal Justice System, ADX,
has been a way to search: myself.
As many things here, the inside becomes: meshed,
in adaptation with outside forces.
(Weakening, or strengthening, building, or destroying.)
Sometimes what we consider: a curse,
can be: a road (a beginning), a door; our cure.
In the Era of Mass Incarceration,
as an African American,
I feel: very much, like a commodity;
as I come to the realization: (monetarily),
others have “set-up,” (taken liberty),
to map-out what they feel is: my destiny.
(A rightful place) as they gain. From a
long ago, enacted (scheme) to hamper the slave.
As with The United States Penitentiary, ADX, now I know:
(That scheme) has become known
as: Justice, Criminalization, Incarceration, The New Jim Crow.
*ADX refers to a maximum security federal prison. Everyone incarcerated there is held in solitary confinement.
My Life Line
By VL
Dedicated to my beautiful niece Ana
It’s an honor to be your uncle
And a blessing to receive your love through your drawings,
Whenever I need some joy in my life
It’s you that I always think of.
Spiritually, you’re always in my prayers
Emotionally, you’re the blood that pumps my heart,
Mentally, you’re constantly in my thoughts
And physically, is the only way we’re apart.
Since the day my sister Nina had you
I’ve loved you like no other,
Well, one other person loves you as I do
And that would be your mother.
It’s always delightful to receive a picture, or drawing
From you and I think I know it will be astonishing when I
See your pretty face close up, I love when your mom
Sends me pictures of you, and from the look of things
In your pictures, you’re growing up quick ☺
You’re the most precious person in my life and I’m
Proud of all that you do,
You bring infinite joy to my days and nights in
Prison, especially when you say to me “I love you.”
Jim Crow
By JS
A Nation divided by frustration.
From racism, slipknots in a noose
Resulting in Asphyxiation.
Just from looking…at a woman that’s Caucasian.
I now know that liberty for all is a fraud,
And the symmetry dividing a friend and enemy
Is the line between the grave of a slave
And a “white” man’s ideology.
Like biology, I learned to dissect through
The flesh of a frog’s false reality,
That it can live in freedom
In protection of nature.
But like me
(Emmett Till)
He’s captured
For a tortuous experiment
Caused by hatred.
It’s like my soul feels
The vibrations
Of a tortured slave’s scream,
Begging for liberation.
Losing patience….
So I’m pacing….
In my cell praying
To God for blessings.
But my fundamental nature
is God’s essence.
So everyday I wake up
I’m in God’s presence.
This is God’s lesson.
If John 10:34 is true
Then I’m a vessel
For the miracle of God’s message.
Protecting My Energy…
By GL
I’ve made peace out of chaos,
by taking a piece out of chaos…
for chaos is but an imbalance to the natural disorder
of the universe.
So, I trained my mind to freeze the earth
So I can take the MC out of square…
Once you take Mass and Matter out of the equation
You’ve created a space, where negative energy dissipate
Where it used to be “Air”…
Riddle ME.
I am, who I tend to be
My vision is what many pretend to see
I have the ability to create my own destiny
The sign and symbols resting next to me.
…and believe it or not.
Adversity is the main verb, that’s protecting me.
Dream
By JJ
A dream is like hope
When you dream you hope it comes true
When it is denied you be happy still
because you saw it in your dream.
When your dream comes true you feel so happy
you hope all your good dreams come true.
Yes there are some bad dreams, those dreams you wish
it do not come true and you want to get out of
that dream.
A dream is like hope
You hope it comes true or you hope it don’t come true.
The Start of a New End
By TC
Age one, living life as a toddler lucky enough to have a father and mother
Age two, growing up getting everything I want
Age three, feels like I’m getting taller by the month
Age four, traveling with my family having fun
Age five, I hopped off the porch, started going outside
Age six, it became a habit, hangin’ around older guys
Age seven, God took my grandfather up to heaven
Age nine, got exposed into the street life kinda
Age ten, started observing everything happening on the block
Age eleven, I was eager to get out of school, watching the clock
Age twelve, I watched Apple take his last breath
Why he gone?
Age thirteen, got locked up and I caught my first charge…
Something You Should Know
By LB
You should know that I was an orphan
Who never knew my biological parents
You should know I was left on the seat of a diner
In a town I never heard of
Bounced from different children’s shelters
Until the age of 7
You should know the only mother I ever known or will ever need
Took me into her home and raised me as her own
She always kept food in my belly
And clothes on my back
I miss her dearly
I pray to God that she bring her back
My Story
By TD
Just two months ago my mom passed away
My girl moved on, now I’m feeling like Tom Hanks in Cast Away
Knives was just at my throat and I didn’t fight them
Dudes just robbed me because my shirt not tucked in my boxers and I don’t say, “Slim,” like them
My daughter only 11, sending me pictures with her hand on her hip
My son just turned 13, thinking about a hand on a clip
But don’t get me wrong, my baby mama a great mother
Besides these last 10 years, her and my best friend been sleeping with each other
I just called home from the (shu), my brother denied 8 calls
But when I was home selling drugs, he never denied 8 balls
Dudes been talking about me because of my situations
And even though I was in pain, I never once asked the nurse for medication
And when everybody was complaining, I still didn’t complain
Some went crazy and I still maintained
And when everybody was crying, I cried inside
Now I understand when Jadakiss said, “Why?”
I picked up a Qur’an, now I see what I didn’t use to see
And as I sit back and listen to a lot of these dudes, they remind me of who I used to be
But you know what hurts the most is when you gotta tell a story
About the people you love doing you wrong
The same family, friends, girls, so-called loyal ones
Posting on Facebook and Instagram, “Free me to come home”
(Damn)
P.S. God created men weak and it’s the trials and tribulations we go through that make us strong. We have to have responsibilities, and if you don’t have that, you’re not a man yet. See I thought I was a man also when I was buying cars, jewelry, blowing money, and having any woman I wanted. See I was a boy not understanding life because none of that stuff made me strong. None. If most of us died today, we won’t even have insurance on ourselves. See we desire the wrong things in life. Please, please change. A wise man always told me, “If you can’t change the people around you, then change the people around you.”
Today’s Mathematics
By JO
30 minutes of chaos
Plus 1 Public Pretender
Plus 1 judge
Equals 39 years
16 years, with about 5 of those drug and alcohol-induced
Produces a very impressionable mind
Countless days filled with violence
Equals a whole lot of trauma
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Moorish Science, History
Plus studying mysteries
Equals a solid understanding
Empathy plus suffering
Equals a road to redemption
Untitled (Flow)
By AC
I close my eyes;
Inhale, exhale,
Take a fraction of a second to grasp
And truly comprehend
The task I have at hand.
I pick up my pen
And one by one,
I pull the thoughts out of my brain
Like pulling threads out of a cloth,
A veil.
Everything around me disappears,
I hear sounds but they’re not clear.
It seems as if everything slows down
And yet the hours pass me by.
I feel that I’m creating
A way to put my silly thoughts on to a paper
In the hopes that some of them are helpful
To the reader, a passerby
Who decides to give me the gift of time
And spend a few minutes reading my creation.
Thank you, good Samaritan,
You’re very kind.
Rewind
By IS
If you could rewind time what would you do different
Would you have gathered the tools in life to influence and make a difference?
Would you have listened?
Would you have made better decisions?
Would you have surrounded yourself with people
Who had better intentions?
Would you finish school, get a job, and make an honorable living?
Or would you have jumped off the porch
To be the average statistic?
Would you cherish your friendships?
Or be more careful and distant?
Would you have been humble though affliction
And find strength in religion?
Would you have disobeyed the code, just to get out of prison?
Ask yourself would you have strived
To aid your brother and sisters?
Or would you still be on the corner selling drugs for a living?
Even though you know the consequences creates a conviction.
These questions I’ve asked myself are now for those who listen
If you could rewind time what would you do different?
Would you change who you are? Would you paint a different picture?
Would you follow the same path or put sights on a different vision?
If you could rewind time what would you do different?
Would you have loved the ones you didn’t?
Or make love a distant feeling?
And although I feel like life is pre-written
My question remains consistent
If you could rewind time what would you do different?