The more you Innocent—
The more you Thrown in Jail—²
Whatever crimes we’ve committed,
Much greater Crimes are committed by
The authorities who maintain the Prisons!³
Those outside dare not set foot in
Prisons for fear of disappearing into
Cells kept empty for them …⁴
Every Prison that men build
Are built of bricks of shame—
The vilest deeds like poison
Weeds bloom well in Prison-Air—⁵
Prisons do not disappear Problems:
They disappear Human Beings!⁶
The degree of Civilization in society
Can be found by entering its Prisons.⁷
Democracy, Freedom, and Progress—
Returned to their cells—are Incoherent—⁸
When the Prisoner dreams of Light, is it
The same Light that Illuminates you?⁹
Dawn: when cops Forget their Jails—¹⁰
¹ Fanny Howe, The Definitions
² V.S. Naipaul, Miguel Street
³ Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
⁴ Katherine Anne Porter, Flowering Judas
⁵ Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
⁶ Angela Davis, Masked Racism
⁷ Fyodor Dostoevsky tr. Constance Garnett, The House of the Dead
⁸ John Berger, From A to X
⁹ Pablo Neruda tr. original, The Book of Questions
¹⁰ Langston Hughes, Demonstration