Prisoners Delimma Poem by Ryan Brodesser

Oh lord help us
Liberate me from this awful place.
Let us be free
from this misery.
this Stygian hell.
this dull pace
Being locked up for so long.
For an innocent man it tis
The epics of all wrongs.
Iron shackles and steel cuffs.
In a society so rough.
Looking out past steel bars.
to the fresh air, green trees and moving cars.

Never trust never care.
Always own a shiv.
For some enemies will never forgive.
That’s the truth in prison, a dangerous place.
For while the courts are reviewing your case
Meanwhile, while you may be stabbed in the face.
Standing in line
Waiting for lunch
Behind me, two convicts kick and punch.
A flash, a dull scream, a chance given in the strife.
One falls backward, clutching a knife.
The guards come and take him away,
Just more blood spilled,
And another regular day.
So bored, sitting on lockdown with naught to do.
A man finds things about himself he never thought were true:
Looking out past steel bars.
to the fresh air, green trees and moving cars.

Like one thousand years it seems without being free.
We wait like a cat for a mouse.
Using what we have
And little else.
What do we have?

To help us out?
Our wits and brains. Nothing else
For we have been here too long.
And have seen too much wrong
To not attempt nothing sane.
The gates glittered.
Freedom beckoned.
We are ready.
Everything that was a problem
Had been thought of and reckoned.
Only four of us
To get through that gate.
To a new life and freedom
Or die and have the gate of hell await.
The barbwire fence
Which had held us so long.
From the right to be free.
Holding us prisoner in wrong.
We are ready waiting so long.

Alarms ringing, sirens singing as we made our way towards the gate.
We had a shotgun, a nightstick, the keys to freedom. This our fate!
Guards are screaming, spot lights beaming
on full as they stay on us trigger fingers twitch, from the watch-posts.
Bullets sing, as we fling
our sad escapee wannabe gonna-be free butts
over the walls.
Bullets fly, voices cry
In victory, I turn and see.
A silver piece of lead
Destined to be my end.
A flare, a silver black smithy of pain.
A hurt, beyond the emotions of my brain.
I feel blood, dearly earned blood, falling like a wastrel’s bottle of beer.
I am falling, ever eternally falling blackness near.

I open my eyes.
There's no pain, no feeling, I feel weightless
Guiltless
Like I’m on a cloud.
The pain, the agony, the fury is a dissipated shroud.
I stand up.
The prison, the forest, is gone.
I get up, and look around.
Clouds, dozens of clouds, here and ahead.
And.. In the distance.. A gate.. A wall
For the redemptful, sinless dead.
No fear, no reluctance and no dread
Finally.. A place where escape is cornered
And freedom is no longer caged.