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.
Click on the poem title to open it up, and then post your comments, feedback, and encouragement in the space below the poem.
Puddles of Water
By DC
The sun blocks my thoughts
But when it rains they roam free
I’m a victim of circumstance
Around people that don’t know me
Maybe if they went through what I did
Things would be different
Mom’s working three jobs
Youngest sis raising children
I thought people was trippin
When they said things’ll get better
Cause they was wearing winter coats
And I was wearing a sweater
Refusing things mom wanted to give
All I wanted was love
Trying hard to be a man
But got misunderstood for a thug
Maybe I would change a few things
If I could go back
Moms would be smiling instead of crying
Yeah I’d like that
FREEDOM MIND
By NH
Wehave been running for so long
that we all need to life our head
and take a moment to breathe
because we haven’t been giving ourselves the chance to breathe
what GOD intended for us to believe in
isn’t it the truth that what makes us strive to be something
but instead we have been captivated by all kinds of discrimination
which make us remain to castigated
so let’s stop fooling ourself and feeding our children with all kinds of fabrication
can’t you people realize that it is the authentication
that we are supposed to be chasing
Our forefathers and mothers shed their blood just to indicate
That it gonna take true education in order for us to amalgamate
To be one nation we must first put an end to all of this complication
Because it’s causing nothing but a whole lot of suffocation
But excuse me I’m just a man of my own
Seeking to uplift the world
But the earth seems to be getting heavier as more war corrupts
But I’m getting stronger as I master myself
Guns and drugs it was just bad for my health
So As-salaamu Alaikum to all the haters
That just be constantly waiting for us to fall into some type of dissipation
Us so-called black people just be constantly killing eachother with cogitation
But nod that ain’t part of my participation
I came into this world as a I built my mind with peace
My soul- is boiling like a volcano
It’s about to explode some heat
I’m talking about the whole 360
Our own true history
Some of us are just so ignorant
That we lack the true knowledge of our own true history
Allah is very angry that we are about to witness- another major catastrophe
His pear precious creation is unable to see
The true color that he created for us all to be
It is so hard to believe
That we killing eachother for something- that isn’t gonna make us all feel relief
So I leave as I came with peace
Especially to all my brother and sisters that I desire to meet.
Salaams, Strife, and Styles of Struggles: A Letter to Abdul-MuJeeb
By AR
I got visions of a villa with three wives HiSaabed up,
Seek provisions of Allah for a brother who got bagged up.
So, now he yearns for a visit because it’s hard when you in prison.
Steady eager on his pivot, for his chance to get a glance at her pretty face.
Its funny how the same thing that makes us love, could also create the hate.
The same thing that get us late keep food on my daughter’s plate.
And when your principles involved it’s up to you whether or not you surrender.
Laughs as I recollect on the past as a lad, sneaking in my girl’s window.
Did you receive the money that I sent you?
Listen, I would never forget the styles of struggle that we been through.
This brotherhood in my life has been so symbolic,
letters with pictures of us preteens engaged in frolic.
These days I’m in strife tryna’ offer all five Salaats.
See the looks in public at me like I’m a terrorist about to attack.
Misled by the media, this deen thrives on peace and humility but never give them pleasure will I,
by hanging in the company of misery.
Stop by your moms crib the other day when I drove through the way,
Took out the trash, dropped off milk, eggs and cheese, no thanks due.
Just being the man I was bred to be, enough for one, enough for two, well two could be shared with three.
See the change coming where we come from is a difficult battle, but I got faith in you act ock and always it’s the little things that seem to matter.
Yeah mo, I know… well I gotta go now, sway wit the breeze.
Remember wit every difficulty, must come ease, and homes you locked in the physical, but your mental, always see our minds are Free…
Hope to see you shine soon on your day to release until then keep ya head up.
As-Salaamu-alaykum.
Sincerely,
Me
Looking for a Smile
By RD
Looking for something just to put a smile on my face.
A smirk, a grin, a giggle if not a minute for just a second of all day.
Look through my outside view there’s nothing that makes me feel that way.
Look through my cell door, that just killed my day.
Although it’s sunny outside and it’s people in here
I have saw nothing to make a smile on my face appear.
I close my eyes, go to sleep, and hope all my troubles just disappear.
I wake up, “Rec. time” I called my mother…lol
that’s how I found my smile to appear!
This Superstitious Relationship
By D.W.
I can’t understand why, but I love you
You show me signs on every corner
But still I adore
My relationship at this point, has fallen out the door
It’s this unconditional satisfaction you bring me with joy
I wanna understand more
Should I call you sweetheart or my sweet mistress?
I love the high yellowish streaks with the touch of black
You should be concrete the way you got me going so hard
My girlfriend and family don’t want to understand
My reasons of being with you
So they pray for me
Like a junkie for some crack, I find myself going back
Unable to live without you
Is it the way the lights glow on us?
You got me hypnotized
But should I desire your presence?
And lose my girlfriend and family
I find myself superstitious in love
So deeply in love
The fame equals pain
The name equals hate
The life equals death
Are we blind to the facts?
She sees us ball
She sees us fall
You can call her “The Streets”
Our down fall
Life Is Peace ‘n Lovable
By A.T.
Life is peace ‘n lovable
But I’m still in jail going through the struggle
Life peace ‘n lovable
But I’m still getting in trouble
I might be looking at time that’s double
Sometimes life is peace but it’s not always lovable
Stressin’
By D.M.
Day and night I’m stressin’
Everyday I strive 2 do good
But I see no progression
But why it gotta be me
And it’s more people like me
So when I’m really stressin’
I drop to the ground and work out
But my mind is cloudy so that don’t work out
Runnin’ thoughts is what’s in my cognitive
I might do negative but I still think positive
I know there’s light at the end of the tunnel
So at the mean time Imma twist up this loud and fronto
And feel how it go away
It’s not 4 ever but for a day
But once back sober stress really sinks in deeper
And she’s a creeper you don’t want to meet her
And I hope you don’t cross her
Runnin’ away thinkin’ that you lost her
But you haven’t
Because that’s what you go thru in life
And we still stress even when we do right
Even though I got this off my chest
Right now I’m stressin’ right now
Time
By E.C.
Time is truly not my friend.
Daily it seems to taunt me,
Telling me it will never end.
Time is holding a grudge against me
keeping me away from you.
Multiplying my dark days
which sometimes makes me blue.
This battle that time is now waging against me,
It is really doing all it can
to prevent me from being free.
Sometimes I lay here wondering
if time is just trying to keep you for itself.
Because it knows deep in my heart that I need no woman else.
Now it seems like time and I,
is in a competition.
To see who at the end wins your love and devotion.
But not even father time is gonna keep me away from you.
Some day it will relent and set me free
for us to start anew.
For me to gaze daily in your beautiful face,
as I try to make up the best I can all the time that I waste.
When the days of my imaginings truly come to an end,
as I wrap you in my arms
my lovely beautiful friend.
I’m A Father
by C.R.
When I was out there, I didn’t know
I was a father til a few months ago
My mother told me
But I still can’t believe it
Because now my little boy got his father in a jail cell
And I don’t want my son to live in my footsteps
Or even get a taste of my crazy life
That involves drugs, gangs, etc.
If I would’ve known that I got a son
I would’ve been home right now
Trying to be someone and support him
And teach him what’s right and not wrong
Not like how my father taught me
Now that I’m away from my little boy
That’s about to be one in four days
Got me feeling like s***
Because I missed his birthday while I’m incarcerated
I know when I get out
I’ma try to help my son and his mother out
‘Til I get his custody
I’ma help him out
The Game
M.D.
The game don’t change.
No matter if they are
new players or the same.
It a shame
how us young people play the game
and don’t realize how much
hurt we are costing all moms.
Can’t you see the
streets ain’t no where to be.
Because at the end of
the day the block goin’ be there
you might NOT
Poppy
by D.W.
When I look at this beautiful flower
I think of you
It’s called Poppy
It reminds me of you
Like a fiend for this flower
I find myself addicted
Lost looking for your love
Do I hide my desires in fear of scaring you away?
Or do I take a chance and hope to see you another day?
If so, what will your eyes say?
I see me as the earth
Feeding you as the plant
All the nutrition needed to make you bloom bright
Sometimes I wonder
What makes you wilt?
What makes you bloom?
Do the breath of my words rustle across you like the wind does a flowers’ petals?
If so, time will tell our future involvement
Because when I think of Poppy
I think of you
Thank You
by R.D.
This poem is for all who help people like me
For all who care about Free Minds
People who sit there and do things
Even if they don’t have time
I want you to know the things you’ve been doing
Is helping change over time.
Even if it don’t feel like it
I’m letting you know
The gratitude I have for you
I will never let go
So all who help Free Minds
Help me and others
We want to thank you
Your help left a dent that is forever.