Journey to Ixtlan

Poetic inspiration is a slippery ride. The poem “Within” started out as a line of thought about communication between geographically separate people. I then thought about how prisoners communicated by tapping morse code on walls and passing notes in common areas. The poem was to be called “Tap Tap Tap”. I sat down to write along these lines, and another poem appeared. It is about how we are all prisoners of something: communication, vision, touch, or identity. The title speaks to the central message of the poem: we may have a prisoner identity, but this does not rob us of our individual identities within.


Within
Poem for Day 016 – 20150116

Tap tap tap on the prison wall,
fellow inmate, take my call.
sounds cross barriers to speak within.

Small notes left in the toilet stall,
heartfelt scribbles between lost ones,
passed in secret to be read within.

Bird fly high in the sky,
seen through my window on wall high,
world seen for me as I am trapped within.

Rough sheets, cool floor, steel bowl,
world shrunk to confines at arm's length,
and still I feel you touch me within.

More of a number, less of a man,
defined by past actions, not what I am,
I am still a person, if only just within.

© 2015. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved.