The Big Yard

//john s. copeman

A scheduled gathering of random design for state-issued orange dots [1]
Like wind blown convicted spores spread across the prison yard, drifting
Some mingle in groups among the sea of individuals, difference
Most sharing historical fictions and telling pointless autobiographies, deceptions
Seeking social associations or pleading institutional brotherly bonds, devotion
To nothing in all honesty but the sentence they must ultimately — deserve

There’s Gregarious Rick greeting his friends as they pass, effusive
And miserable Aaron, the barber of Kincheloe cutting and complaining, egregious
The Apostle Paul preaching the gospel of the weight-pit, ecclesiastic
Bi-polar Joe’s chemically maintained moderate mode, egotist
Long lost George an exile of the Maple Leaf, ejected
finally, Persnickety Jack is the walking writer on the wane — egressing

“What they got?” Meaning the menu, the highpoint of the day, breakfast
Another allotment of “ ... with potatoes” for lunch and dinner, banal
“Got a tray for sale! Pizza for sale! Let’s trade,” business
Give you two soups or a soap, maybe two desserts, barter
“Hell no! Give me your chicken for my cookie and eggs?” bargained
“You’ve got it my man,” to seal the deal they call it a — “bet”

Report to the desk, the podium, the control-center, the sergeant, ticket
A written misconduct for unlimited violations in a petty … theater
Of the absurd to punish the punished which only creates, tension
That’s the only solution they have, it’s nothing but bad, theory
As everyday is the same, we’re all just playing the game, thesis
Because in the end it’s really nothing more than simply marking — time.
 

Footnote:

[1] MDOC winter knit caps, which some prisoners wear all year long, are orange.

//John S. Copeman is a contributor to The Periphery.