Little Mick,

in

solitary,

thirty days now,
no release in sight.

We talk through the glass.
I ask how your meditation’s going.
(You look like a monk,
your hair gone.)

Your body,
a canvas kissed
with ink of incrimination.

BANDITO!

It screams
each time you reach out your hands
to be shackled
for your morning’s walk.

Thirty days of solitude
in fifteen years.

Little Mick,
Sergeant at arms,
(retired.)
Caught in the ramblings
of
the new man on the block.

Impatient at bars,
at bricks,
at glass,
that hold
the body,
not mind.

‘Cry out for me,’
you said,
‘tell the world
these walls hold an innocent man.
‘Tell them, twenty- two hours a day
locked in this dog kennel.
Eating, sleeping and shitting
in the same room.’

Mick,
I’ve screamed out your plea till I was hoarse.
Yelled louder than a hundred Harleys.
Asked ears of deafness,
‘Be attentive.’

I’ve whispered prayers for you,
from the heart.
I know your prison’s
of steel and concrete.

But we’re all prisoners,
Mick.

Prisoners
of our own asking.

Held
by debt,
by servitude,
solitude,
longing.

Mick,
I know your innocence,
know your simple crime:

to be passing by as the guard changed.