Monday, November 4, 2019

A Prisoner's Library - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Prisoner’s Library

“For hym was levere have at his beddes heed
Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed…”

-Chaucer, on his Clerk of Oxenford

A prisoner’s bunk is also his library
His few books neatly stacked next to his head
A bible and maybe its commentary
Self-improvement pamphlets, a novel or two

A prisoner’s bunk is his home for now
Some pencils and a writing tablet, and notes
And letters hugged up with a rubber band
So in the night his tears can touch them still

A prisoner’s life is his university -
But, hey, spaghetti again for dinner?

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