Soliloquy of the Soul:

Poetry from

Solitary Confinement

OHpny - Rae 2007
Frogress Drive
7;:”@ 2 175 Frog
7ons Roe JTatsoh (o nechor, A 15 3708000
o Wayneshors,

By, Matthew Smith B86629
‘Hypnotic Stare

The hypnotic stare of darkness penetrates my eyes,

Burrowing deep inside my soul;

Distorting the truth and covering it with lis,

Planting parasitic seeds within my ‘mind that take root and grow.

“This hypnotic stare that captivates me and wipes everything else from my mind,
Leaves me spinning through the darkness of oblivion’s abyss,

Suspended in frozen time;

Driftng through waves of an eerie mist.

Hyprotized by this hypnotic stare 1 wander down dark alleys that twist and tum,
Lostin the darkness of an urban wilderess with no idea of where I am;

Slowly I stumble through the flames of hell and watch myself bum,
Remembering that | am nothing more than the essence of a man.

The hypnotic stare that consumes my very own soul,

Leads me through life unaware of reality,

As ] travel dowm the paths of roads unknown;

Just 2 lonesome creature afflicted by the hypnotic stare’s malady.

Death’s Remembrance

Listen to the wind as it blows through the leaves;
The sound of mourers as they grieve.

Hear the flat-footed falls of the dead,

Over the tombstones and mounds that they tread.
For in their crypts no breath shall they take;
Those lost souls never again to awake.
Resistance

The heart of a man beats inside of his chest,
A sign of his resistance to the reality of death.
Unconsciously he inhales another breath,

His sub-conscious mind resisting eternal rest.

In the battlefield bullets scream through the air,
But the soldier continues to fight resisting his fears.
The sound of bombs exploding fills his ears,

And yet his vision remains clear resisting his tears.

‘The prisoner sits lonely inside of his cell,

Goals occupy his time as he resists the confines of jail.
At night the darkness creeps out of its well,

But light shinés in his heart as he lays resisting hell.

Hope is thing that lives within the heart,

A thing that resists despair; ts evil counter-part.
Resistance is the thing from which all hope starts,
Because resistance is inside all of our hearts.

Another Day

Another day has passed,

T wish it were my last;

How cruel you can be heedless fate,

To lock me away behind theses gates.
Concrete, steel, intense emotions,

Burry me in a greater depth than an ocean.
Shackles and cuffs kiss my ankles and wrist;
The pain 5o exquisite, I can’t stand this crypt.
In the Land of Freedom | am locked away,
Thope I can last another day.
Hourglass

I stand entrapped within an hour glass as the sand slowly falls,
Imprisoned in a world that has transparent glass walls.

Lam able to gaze out at the world and the progress its made,
But I cannot escape the cage of the hourglass’ blockade.
Each grain of sand that falls marks another year of my life;
The glass walls of my prison never hindering my sight.

1 gaze despondently out into the world;

My thoughts so chaotic they make my head twirl.

The fallen sand piles, slowly burying me alive;

As insanity drifts nearer, invading my mind.

My hand rests forlomly on the walls of glass,

And my mind is conflicted with things of the past.

More sand has fallen and buried me up to my waist,
Sadness shines in my eyes because I know that I cannot escape.
Emotions consume my soul leaving me full of despair;

The sand steadily climbs higher leaving me gasping for air.
In the final moments of my life I reflect on all I have done;
‘The good and the bad, the sad and the fun.

My head is now covered and I can no longer see,

‘The walls of the hourglass that are surrounding me.

Just a few more beats of my heart and my life will end,

And the falling of the sand will once again begin.

Every last one of us are trapped in an hourglass of our own,
‘The transparent glass of its walls constructing our home.
‘The falling of the sand marks the passing of time,

And when the sand no longer falls death claims our lives.
Revolutionary Spirit

‘The revolutionary in my heart that lies in slumberous sleep,
I the spirit that causes my heart to beat.

A small ember at first, it slowly blooms into flame;

A revolutionary consciousness pervading my brain.

‘The righteous anger of the oppressed rises p in my soul,
Gripping me with a knowledge that won’t let me go.

No longer able to tolerate the chains that confine me;

1 rise up in resistance to this oppressive, cruel reality.

1 fight

isting until my heart rests in my chest.
‘Though at times the struggle is hard | always persevere,
Education is liberation; I wam the people like Paul Revere.
Riding through the night with foes at my back;

Flecing from my pursuers as they ry to attack.

‘They close in slowly until I am caught;

A prisoner of war, | accept my lot.

‘With steel and wire they bind my hands,

A gun shot booms; they're only killing & man,

‘The Capitalist System

1sitin my cell and experience the Capitalist system,

And this system oppresses me because of my resistance.

My resistance is against the system’s oppressive conditions,

‘That cause me to scream in pain and fear but the oppressor never listens.

1 stare out a dark window in an attempr to see stars on which [ could be wishing,
‘That Revolution would grip the nation and liberate its children.

Freedom, peace, equality: all of these are missin’,

While the people are oppressed by the Capitalist System.
Isolation
6
I have no window in my cell from which the world can be seen,
So the world has become a distant memory; a fading dream.
Thrown inside of this dungeon I am left to rot,
And I feel as if I fight in vain and struggle for naught.
My family grows older and some of them die,
But this system doesn’t allow me to hold them or to say goodbye.
My comrades around me suffer the same abuse;
Shoved inside isolated cells we live like a recluse.
I hear my comrade’s voices on the gallery everyday,
Yet there are only a few | have seen face to face.
So many different questions my troubled soul asks,
With no one to answer they quickly melt into the past.
Yet, when | lay down each night I have hope in my heart,
That tomorrow is when the change will start.

Life’s ns

Despondency, anger, pain, depression;
Anxiety, loneliness, doubt, oppression;
Distrust, loathing, insecurity, regression;
Dishonor, lies, deceit, repression.

These are a few of life’s sad lessons.

Love, joy, truth, loyalty;

Honor, hope, pleasure, security;

Contentment, laughter, faith, certainty;
Happiness, belonging, friendship, surety.

These are the lessons of life that last for etemity.
Propaganda of a Revolutionary 7

‘The soldiers of Bondage have a determination,

“To gather the masses to hear our proclamation.

It is time to end the discrimination,

“That terrorizes the people of the American Nation.

Why s it the factions continue the hatin’,

That's propagated by the oppressor that all of us are facin’?
To busy gang-bangin’ and listening to radio stations;
And believing the tyrants when they say we’re mistaken.
Caught up in the deception we don’t see that they re faki:
So we continue to struggle like something forsaken.
And as the years go by we forget what was taken,

So we abandon the war that we have been wagin’,

Lost throughout history the terror of Caucasians,

As they enslaved the Negro and persecuted the Asians.
Don't forget the Indians on a war-path ragin’,

At the injustice of the White man’s invasion.

‘The capture of men and the practice of encagin’,

‘Those men and women that they weren’t enslavin’.

In horror our ancestors watched as the friends were rapin’,
Every man, woman, and child that they had taken.
Imperialist pigs want us dragging our feet,

To succumb to their tyranny and acknowledge defeat.

But a Revolution has started led by 5.0.8.,

Whose goal is to crush the oppressor and set the people free.
United we stand before the masses and speak;

In defiance we roar and reject defeat.

Attacking the oppressors until all of them bleed;

Not satisfied until theyre six feet deep.

The revolution is strong while the tyrants are weak,

And the oppressors we encounter fall to their knees.

In supplication they bow begging for peace;

Trying to justify their inhumane feats.

No longer do we wish to hear the barbaric swine shrick,
Nor the sound of our women as they wail in grief.

We gave them a chance to pack their bags and leave,

Propaganda of a Revolutionary (continued)

But in arrogance they stayed thinking we wouldn’t succeed.
For how could they know the power of a seed,

That was planted long ago and is now a tree?

Nourished by the blood of our comrades who died;
Sacrificing their lives so that we might survive.

We've had enough of the Capitalists’ lies,

They've fed us for years throughout our lives.

Nowis the time for the people to rise,

And let them know it is them we despis.

In anger our voices soar and in passion we cry,

Atthe outrage of all the people we had to sce die.

How dare they have the audacity to hope,

That they’lIl be given a chance to escape their rope.

It wasn’tin weakness that we started this revolt;

We've gotten this far and we won't start to choke.

And as funeral pyres burn the sky fills with smoke,

As we annihilate our oppressors with a merciless stroke.
They had heard of our struggle but thought it was a joke;
Confronted with reality none of them spoke.

‘The time of slavery has come to an end,

And the era of freedom is about to begin.

Gone will be the inequality of men;

‘While society embraces its enemies as kin.

On a brand new axis the world will spin,

When the revolution we’re waging finally wins.
In the Darkening Night

Tlay in my cell in the darkening night,

And entertain thoughts of suicide.

Llay in my cell in the darkening night,

And I struggle with the pain; the emotions inside.
Tlay in my cell in the darkening night,

And think of what I've done with this meaningless life.
Tlay in my cell in the darkening night,

And reflect on a lfe full of anger and lics.

Llay in my cell in the darkening night,

And I slowly, inevitably, reach for a knife.

Ilay in my cell in the darkening night;

Isay a prayer and close my eyes.

Story Untold

These prison gates slam down on my soul;
These iron bars so cruel and cold.

Caught in the clutches of captivity's hold,
My soul cries out with a story untold.

‘These manacles that bind me by ankle and wrist,
Confine me for eternity in hell’s dark abyss.

These chains rattle when I walk; echoing death’s hiss,
As oblivion swallows me with a cold, dry kiss.

The darkness is so complete that I feel despair,
Lost to the world in a trance I stare.
Hyperventilating I panic; gasping for air,
Desolate and alone with no one who cares.
lo

Hope

The clouds have shifted and the sun’s riys burst forth,

Shining down hope on my troubled soul;

Like the Earth's magnetic field pulling a compass arrow North,
“This hope is driving me to once again be whole.

Time has shattered like shards of glass,
Ripping from me the confinement of chains;
Freedom envelopes me as | escape the past,
And like & snake’s second skin | shed my pain.

Driven by hope my spirit lifts;

Sending me further on my quest to be free,

Like moving tectonic plates that cause the carth to shift;
Happiness and contentment replace anger and greed.

Hope is what keeps me going in my darkest hours,
Stopping insanity from gripping my mind;

In this dark, desolate hell my hope flowers,
‘Shattering the stillness of incarcerated time.

Shine

Dancing erratically with the shadows of time,

My mind is distorted by their symbolic signs.

Swinging on the vines of insanity in the Jungle of Despair,

1 exhale the toxins that permeate the air.

These bars close in on me and trap me inside the abyss,

And this steel that binds my wrists caresses my soul with a deadly kiss.
But trapped within the captivity of my mind,

Is a hope and a light that will always shine.
Sinister Roads
n
Screaming and screeching, just another tortured soul;
Driven to insanity by confinement’s cold hold.
Isolated and lost I wander alone,
Down trails and paths and sinister roads.
In this darkness I lay dying and cold,
Living 2 tale to horrorific o be told.
Lost in this system my freedom has been sold,
So itis down sinister roads that I constantly roam.
Pain and fear are all [ have known;
Horrorified and insane from the things I've been shown.
Buried beneath 2 thousand pounds of stone,
This desolate crypt has become my new home.

What Would You Do?

What would you do if you could travel back in time,

And make an alteration that would change your life?
Would you choose for love or would you choose for hate;
Would you accomplish something or correct a mistake?

‘What would you do if you could travel back in time,
And make an alteration that would change your life?
Would you do something for good or something for evil,
Or would you choose to do both or choose to do neither?

What would you do if you could travel back in time,
And make an alteration that would change your life?
I'lltell you what I, personally, would o,

I'd stop myself from ever hurting you.
12

Have You?

Have you ever faced the demons in life
“That maul and destroy you from inside?

Have you ever been faced with the doubt you're a man,
Having been forced unwillingly to make a stand?

Have you ever ashamed others with the things that you've said,
Or overdosed on drugs and been left for dead?

Have you ever been forced to face trials on your own;
Abandoned by everyone, left all alone?

Have you ever done things in life you regret,
Things that horrify you and you can’t forget?

Have you ever read something that you truly believed,
And found out later that you've been utterly deceived?

Have you ever met someone that you completely loved,
Then lost them forever to violence and drugs?

Have you ever experienced pain at the highest level,
Or been tempted by “god” or by the “devil™?

Have you ever experienced anything that exceeded all joy,
And then been told it was all a ploy?

Have you ever experienced a life of horror?
T have experienced this and much, much more.
Life’s Journey 3

I stumble and stagger down life’s biter road;
Burdened and weary from my heavy load.
Clouds of dust mark my path,

I taste the fury of the Grapes of Wrath,

Desolate and bitter I carry on;

Striving and struggling for whatever lies beyond.
From sunrise to sunset I trod my path alone,
Aimlessly searching for a place to call home.
Sweat streaks down my face soaking my neck,
Fatigue overwhelms me and [ am short of breath.
Exhausted | stagger; walking on dead feet,
Plodding slowly to whatever in life I shall meet
No longer able to walk I sit and rest,

Patiently waiting to be taken by death.

Once in its embrace bliss I shall find;

As the wearies of life are erased from my mind.

Questions

What s this thing that is denied to me?
It is the desire to be free.

What denies me this thing that I crave?
Itis iron bars and prison gates.

Why do these bars and gates exist?

To aid and empower the Capitalist.

Why is the Capitalist so evil in Nature?
Because it is an oppressive hater.

What are the things that it hates?

Itis those things that make man great.
And what are those things might I ask?
They are freedom, righteousness, honor — things of the past
S0 tell me, then, what can be donc?

We can rebel uniil the revolution is won.
Soliloquy of My Soul

The ink spilling from this pen is the blood of my life.

These jagged lines of words the cries of my soul.

The ink is staining the paper's pure essence of white,

Just like my pain is staining the consciousness of all those who know.
Oppression and tyranny terrorize the world;

Millions and billions of children left for dead.

Leaving it spinning in a hectic twirl,

Lying deep beneath the earth’s crest in its vast lonely bed.

Phantoms of the past flicker in my eyes,
I see the things that have been.

‘These ghosts reveal to me the truth and the lies,

Created and altered throughout the history of men.

And as the truth is revealed I relive the pain;

Twisting and screaming within the confines of my mind.
The lost souls of the past are screaming my name,

Their eries resounding with the echo of time.

In insanity I drift a slowly dying sun,
With the whispers of spirits inside of my ears.
Fantasy and reality mingle as one,

As] reflect on my life through the last few years.
The solitary confinement that binds my being;
Distorting my senses into a psychological wreck.
Has me like a fool who doubts what he is seeing,
As my emotions swirl in chaos; leaving me a mess.

Like a demented animal I lash out at the bars of my cage;
My captors laugh and watch me as I struggle in vain.

Hissing and snarling I scream in rage,

Wanting only to make these fiends feel my pain.

Bashing and slashing I always fight back;

Giving my tormentors a taste of fear.

Hitting and kicking until they're all laid flat;

Splintered into pieces like a shattered mirror.

The soliloquy of my soul is a desperate wail,
Echoing off stone and steel.

The sound tolls like the ringing of a bell,

Letting the world know how I feel.

Abandoned and lonely 1 sit entrapped in these walls;
My mind drifts into thought like a mist in a bog.
While days flash by but time itself stalls,

1 float through the breeze like a remnant of fog.

Metaphysical ploys,
Prison Irrational despise,
Never-ending noise,
Detrimental thoughts, Constant lies.
Suicidal tendencies, Unquestioning hate,
Prison cots, Pointless deceit,
Agonizing memories. Psychological rape,
Prison bars, Utter defeat.
Concrete blocks, Shaky alliances,
Prison guards, Always paranoid,
Time never stops. Forceful compliances,
Steel cage, Overtly annoyed,
Gun Towers, Harshly engraved,
Asphalt maze, Privacy breached,
Lonely hours. Cruelly enslaved,
Ceaseless time, Arms outreached.
Unforgiving nature, Anguished cries,
Violent crime, Oppressive deportment,
Gambling wager. Tearful goodbyes,
Lengthy confinement, Never important.
Inevitable pain, Tormented wails,
Unstoppable violence, Irrepressible misery,
Driven insane. Depressive jails,

This is what consumes me.
1z
The Tortured Soul

The tortured soul cries out in the night;

Steel bars and chains amplify his plight
Screaming in pain and crying in fear,

Terrified and ashamed he hides his tears.

Not understanding where he’s at;

How he got there or how to go back.

Scared of reality he hopes it’s a dream,

But knows it’s not so he yells and screams.

The pain he feels shows in his facc,

As he wishes he wasn’t in this place.

Tears of sadness fall from his eyes;

He sits in despair because no one heeds his cries.
Surrounded by cold steel and concrete bricks,

He rants and raves and walks and sits.

In desperation he seeks out love,

Or develops faith in a power above.

Yet it seems that the world is blind;

That it doesn’t care and has left him behind.
Where is the justice he was promised in life,

He wonders as he thinks that this just can’t be right.
There has to be a way out he hopes;

While simultaneously he braids a rope.

Every moming he wakes to see cinder blocks;
Another day has passed yet time has stopped.
Years have gone by but it seems nothing has changed,
The turmoil of his life slowly driving him insane.
The emotions he feels bottled up inside;

The tortured soul slowly dies
17
Blood

Blood spurts from my wrist and splatters the walls;
Dripping and running, [ watch my blood fall.

1 lay consumed by agony as my life source drains,

From the shredded and mutilated remains of my veins.
The steady drip of my blood as it falls to the floor,

Takes me closer and closer to the threshold of death's door.
The more blood that falls the more that my soul fades,
Burying me deeper in the depths of my grave.

The pain that consumes me is slowly replaced with bliss,
As | gradually slide deeper into the abyss.

Emo

“This razor blade caresses my wrist while tearing my skin apart;
The pain giving me a rush and quickening my heart.

Solitary confinement is killing me from inside,

Destroying my character and corrupting my mind.

As blood pours forth from my shredded skin,

‘The pain consumes me and I can feel again.

This pain is bliss because it allows me to feel;

Allows me to escape fantasy and once again be real.

The emotions I once felt have died and gone,

So I place pain where they belong.
24
The Song of the Fox

1am the fox and | am cunning,

A predator choosing its prey; I am hunting.
Manipulative and swift define what I am,
Tam the spirit of the fox in the form of a man.

Protective of my life and all that I own,

A lonely creature prowling forgotten roads.
Intelligent in my ways and fierce in nature,
A fox and a man; a shift changer.

Curious and sly, I always survive;

I deal with the experiences that I go through in life.
A beautiful spirit and a glorious soul,

Entrapped for etemnity in a darkening gaol.

A Prisoner’s Lament

The screaming, seething, nashing of teeth;
The terror of cold, the anguish of heat.
Incarcerated forever except for in ‘mind,
A grain of sand floating through time.
That is the story of our lives;

First to live, then to die.

O my Brethren, hear our wail;

From the dark, lonely pits of jail.
Tormented in soul you hear us sing,
Longing for the Bells of Freedom to ring.
For in our hearts turned to stone;
Whispers the desire to be at home.
7

Darkness

Swimming through a sea of darkness | cannot breath,
In terror I panic yet I don’t hear my own screams.
Desperate for lfe I battle what I cannot see;

I struggle with the darkness that envelopes me.

Pain and anger are all that I know,

1 have feclings inside that I am scared to show.
Because then | will be vulnerable to all of life’s woes,
And I am already wounded; a shattered soul.

Itis in the darkness that I fight for breath,

As my heart goes wild inside of my chest.
Suffocating I use all the strength I have left,
In one last desperate attempt to fend off death.

Mixed Heritage

Indigenous roots creep down through my soul,
Mingling with Irish roots; making me whole.

Two heritages I possess and two birth-rights [ own,
Over lish hills and Cherokee mountains I roam.

Two ancestries tying me to two bleeding lands,
‘That were invaded and raped by the white man.
Oppression and genocide flowed from their hands,
And an anger consumes me like a fiery brand.

I’m not mad at the men for the color of their skin,
But the politics that led them to commit such sins.
Racism will get us nowhere and we can’t hope to win,
If we act like bafoons instead of true men.
20

Someone Like Me

Slipping through time and into the past,

Faster and faster my memories flash.

Old dreams resurrected by the shadows they cast;
Confusion and insanity driving me mad.

Within this cold cell I deteriorate;

Sensory deprivation causing my mind (o stagnate.
Buried in this crypt I long to wake,

And regain the ife stolen from me by fear and hate.

Reminiscing on the past and the things that have been;
Locked within this dungeon sentenced and condemned.
Trapped inside Purgatory in suffering I swim,
Surrounded by darkness and the wailing of men.

Bones ground into dust by the guards’ iron fists,
Beaten unconscious; slipping into the abyss.
Bruised and battered, embraced by pains kiss;
Each inhale of my breath an agonizing hiss.

“The clang of steel as the doors slam closed;

Perforated and scourged with bullet holes.

‘This concrete and steel coffin enclosing my soul,
Shredding my consciousness until I'm no longer whole.

‘The stench of decay permeates the air;
Leaving me desolate and full of despair.
Trappe ide hell with no one who cares,
With thousands of others this agony I share.

Solitary confinement tearing me apart from inside;
Inside this concrete and steel box I have nowhere to hide.
In psychological and emotional chaos I slide,

Down the steep slopes of depravity that exist in my mind.

Chains confine me — both the visible and unseen,
Digging deeper into my soul as my aura bleeds.
Shattered and dark this world will seem,

‘When seen through the eyes of someone like me.
2!
Escape

A lost soul found redemption and went home today,
Struggling in this hell he found his way.

Like a bird taking flight he soured over these gates;
After suffering for years he found a way to escape.

The sweet bliss he must have felt at the instant of his release,
Was sure to have brought him a rapturous peace.

The horror of his confinement layed to rest and deceased,
Liberated his soul and caused his suffering to cease.

In longing I lay in my cell and wait for the day,
When T myself will walk out of these gates.

On that glorious day my soul will escape,

The torturous confines of psychological rape.

Imprisoned Reality

Chains rattle, steel bites into flesh,

Darkness encroaches like oncoming death.
Screams and moans resonate through the air;
Exploited and oppressed until your soul's laid bare.
Confined to a cell you lose all hope,

As insanity drifts near your mind starts to float.
Tormented, depressed, in outrage you cry;

Stuck in stand-stil as the world passes you by.
Enslaved by another you begin to go mad,

As society takes you from all that you've have.

A chance at redemption is all that you crave,
Instead you're given a number and a pre-marked grave.
Life is so cruel; a nasty litle joke,

And this Capitalist system will leave you broke.
zz

1 Wonder

I wonder what it’d be like to have lived an innocent life,
To have graduated from high school and never got high.
To have been the big brother I was supposed to have been,
To never have committed a crime and come to the “Pen.”
To have been from a happy family instead of a broken home,
Outcasted forever to the streets that | roamed.

To have planted a seed;

To have been the man my family wanted me to be.

To have lived a live free of pain,

A life that was full and without shame.

In essence, I wonder what it’d be like to be free;

From the chains and the bars that currently detain me.
23
Man Made Hell

Opening my eyes I realize it wasn’t a dream,

In an awakening nightmare [ hear myself scream.

These walls are closing in on me, pushing me closer to death;
Slowly suffocating me as I struggle for breath.

Sweat-soaked sheets cover my body in a shroud;
P'm an isolated soul in a tumultuous crowd.
Pain wracks my body consuming my mind,
Struggling for breath and running out of time.

Fear blinds me and covers my eyes,

As lay in this crypt and slowly die.

The reality of this hell haunts me in my sleep,

And my memories of the past cause my heart to weep.

Steel bars clang shut on my desolate soul,
In a hell of etemity I slowly grow old.

Whispers of insanity tickle my ears;

T've been decaying in this cell for countless years.

In torturous pain my soul cries out;

An agonized screech pouring forth from my mouth.
Blood runs out of self-inflicted wounds,

As the darkness around me slowly blooms.

‘This slowly blooming darkness is claiming my life,
Cutting into my soul like a serrated knife.

Cut into pieces in this darkness I lay;

Hopelessly hoping for the dawn of day.

In the darkest lair of this mausoleum I sightlessly stare,
Secing hallucinations of things I know cannot be there.
Losing my mind in the solitary confinement of my cell,
I barely exist in this man made hell.
Monster 2y
Looking into the eyes of a monster it is insanity I see;

An insanity so deep it makes the soul scream.

Driven insane by the rattle of chains;

Beaten and isolated until driven insane.

Suspicious of everything;
Paranoid and afraid,
Consumed by a sharp and torturous pain.
Gazing into a mirror at the monster I sec,
1 realize in horror that the monster is me.

Poetry

Poctry is an inspiration to the soul;

Itallows us to escape despair’s death-like hold.

The messages it carries are liberation in essence,

Distracting us from the hopelessness of despair's evil presence

On wings like eagles with poetry I soar,

And its liberating messages consume my core.
The hope that it gives me allows me to thrive,
In this hopeless world of suffering and lics

The words of poets resonate in my dreams;
The messages they carry pervade my being.
Upliftment and hope they offer my heart,
Like a speck of light in the smothering dark.

The art of poetry s a beautiful thing,

As wondrous as hearing the song birds sing
The melodies it carries tickle the car;

A joyous sound for those who hear.

Without poetry the world would be dull;

There would be no push and there would be no pull.
It would be a despondent world in which 10 live,

If poets and poetry did not exist.
25

My Tum to Bum

Why s it that the poetry of my soul seems so dark and depressive,

And leaves me contemplating things that make me angry and aggressive?
These words pour forth at the speed of light,

Demonstrating and describing the nature of my plight.

The steel and concrete of my suffocating tomb,

Resounds with the sinister echo of my doom.

“The snick and the clack of the lock as it ums,

Signifies to me that it is my turn to burn.

(About the Extraction Team)

Cemetery

1 slip through the tombstones that mark the places of the dead,
The cerie mist filling this cemetery filling me with dread.

Al of the lost souls that are buried deep in this place,

Stare out at me from their coffins with a pale, white facc.
Reaching out to me for help they starc into my eyes;

These lost souls in prison that inevitably die.

2¢

One Day At A Time

Hectic thoughts spin through my mind swirling out of control,
An inky darkness consumes me to the depths of my soul.
Desperation and panic grip me and this fear won’t let go;

Itis to a distant hope that I desperately hold.

Despair surrounds me like some sinister mist;
Invisible blades dig deep into my wrists.
Terrified I stare into my soul's dark abyss;
Fruitlessly [ run from death’s sweet kiss.

‘The sun has become no more than a forgotten sight;
In darkness [ am covered devoid of all light

‘This darkness is real and [ watch it take flight,

Unfil T live in a world where there reigns eternal night.

Sometimes | wonder at the things [ have seen,
Hopelessly reminiscing as my soul bleeds.
My soul s hungry as the darkness feeds;
Taking from me all the essence of me.

Emotionally dead I cannot cry,

Yet without emotions my fear is sill high.
Trying to live my life one day at a time;
Fighting the urge to just let go and die.
Scribbling Frantically

Scribbling frantically in an attempt to reveal,

The emotions, confusion, and uncertainty I feel.
Chaotic thoughts put in order by the words that 1 lay;
“This paper giving voice to the things | must say.

The fury of my pen assaulting this page;

Secribbling frantically as I vent my rage.

Through these words I escape reality for a moment in time,
Laying to rest the troubled thoughts of my mind.

The ink bleeds through this page as my words continue to flow;
Creating poetry to sooth my soul.

Through the words in my poems I escape the pain,

That chafes my soul like manacles and chains.

The words flow forth from my innermost being,

And comfort me from the horrors of the things 1 am seeing.
My pen grasped tighily in sweat-slick palms,

Pours forth poetry that leaves my soul calm.

Scribbling frantically the ink continues to bleed;
Silently giving voice to my torturous screams.

The poetry of my soul consumes my mind,

Giving purpose to a lfe that had no reason or hyme.

‘The Revolutionary CI Nursery Rhyme

Until these walls fall down
And these bricks hit the ground
T will always stand tall

1 will always stand proud

1 will never give up

1 will never bow down

“till these walls fall down
Chaos

Confusion swirls like dark eddies throughout my mind,
And like a pendulum [ swing lost in time.

Swinging, swinging, like the pendulum I fly;

‘Through this life of mine that has no reason or rhyme.

Darkness sweeps down like a mist in the night,
Enveloping my senses and blotting out the light.
Lost I stumble grasping for sigh
Attempting to escape the darkness of my lifc.

Despair sets in staining my soul;
Leaving me feeling hopeless and cold
“The roots of despair continue to grow,
Gripping my life; never letting go.

Loneliness is the only companion I have;
‘The loneliness so profound it's driving me mad.
It eaves me empty and feeling sad,

While it consumes my soul like an evil hag.

Hate flames up inside of my heart,
Destroying my life and tearing me apart.

I don’t know where the anger ends and the hatred starts,
But it's slowly killing me like a dying star.

Confusion, darkness, despair, loneliness, and hate — they all consume me,
Like poisonous flowers that are blooming.

And the toxic clouds that they are fuming,

Are pervading my soul and are all consuming,

H&. aTTHew SHTH™ B339
% W, Il CoRR. ceatek

South Chicago

ABC Zine Distro J8500 RT. 97 s.

S Bt o1 NI STERLIPS, T)ljneis
Homewood, It 60430

¢2353