New Work from Northern State Correctional in Newport, VT (First of 3)
“This Too Shall Pass”
by Anonymous
Northern State Correctional Facility
This too shall pass
The words were scratched onto a piece of notebook paper
Yellowed with water stains and cigarette smoke
Arriving at my prison cell as I begin a sojourn through hell
That will last twenty years.
Tears burn at the corner of my eyes
So much the powder in the corners of the paper
Scored off the yard, used up and disintegrating in toilet water.
The high too shall pass
Like the sands of time that is my life
But will the agony pass as well?
I think not.
But with the parting words of the hope-lost lover,
It seems that my path should change.
Must change.
Or sacrifice the empty carapace of the life I have left.
This too shall pass.
The demons once fallen will never rise again.
Unless I continue to place them with powder and paper
Disintegrating with my life in the toilet water.
One crumple paper must be the last,
It must be I who removes the damage
And ends the chaotic cycle of decay.
“For Too Long”
by Anonymous
Northern State Correctional Facility
For too long have the waters
Raged above my head.
Sunlight trickles through
Angel hair thin.
It sears my pale skin
And my night-blinded eyes.
I am drowned beneath
These crashing waves
Scrambling for the surface
Unsure of what the land will bring.
Breaking the surface,
I taste air as if for the first time.
Now it’s my turn.
Too long have I been claimed
By the shadowy depths
Threatened to be smothered
Into futile oblivion.
No.
I cast aside
The velvet cloak of delirium
And choose once more to stand.
“Do You Know?”
by Anonymous
Northern State Correctional Facility
Do you know what I just heard?
Do you know what he’s in for?
Do you know what he is?
After being cast out of the light of society
One would think to find some commonality,
If not some comaraderie,
Amongst the dregs of humanity.
Yet we squabble to find who is first
Among the last
Who is king
Of the garbage heap
Never mind that we are all the same
To those beyond these four walls.
The word “inmate” is said through gritted teeth
Like a racial slur.
“Inmate lives don’t matter”
“They make their own beds”
And to no one do we have recourse
Because who would listen to the voice of a monster
Let they find that we all
Make our own beds
And that we aren’t so different after all.