Poetry

1.
Virtual Liberty carries the prisoner this festive Fourth
Through littered parks where immigrants barbecue redolent chicken and el maiz;
Across cafe-crowded sidewalks;
Beneath opulent, exploding fireworks by the riverside the balmy evening air,
Where he scans the variegated faces in the throng.
He seeks one character in particular whom he knows he loves.
She's beautiful; the most comely woman he's met
During his incarceration. So he walks,
With the apparent ease of freedom,
Through the circus light of neon in taverns
Where drunken bullies brawl;
Past the fire station, and the Post Office (closed now);
The pool hall; and the endless cavalcade of passersby;
Until, rounding a corner,
He descries the shapely physique,
The flowing auburn mane,
And pink dimpled cheeks of the one he loves,
Stepping out of the light of an old-fashioned ice cream parlour, laughing;
Licking her ice cream cone and holding it
At such an angle to her body
That it cannot drip and stain her white cotton dress.

2.
The desperado follows, swiftly and silently,
His sole aptitude vicarious penance.
He thinks to run up from behind but somehow smothers the impulse.
Only her femininity spurs him on, but how exquisitely!
Suddenly his spirit shrinks and his feet become leaden.
Should he approach, well he knows, the beauty,
Affrighted by his boldness and mistaking it for treachery
Would cry out, and the game would be at an end.
She's done exactly that time and time before
And must again, always.
Because this cityscape, on this Fourth of July, is virtual.
The time is actually midwinter,
And behind the reinforced concrete and steel walls
Of a Federal penitentiary
The only partaker of living bread in this scenario is
The prisoner.

3.
Nations, too, may dote upon ephemera.
When disc jockeys hawk celebrity cookbooks and sex books
And petrochemicals make a lethal hothouse of the sky;
When cabals vote to surveil outspoken dissenters and their friends by satellite;
To subpoena the email of college professors;
To clutter the public discourse with sports statistics and weather forecasts;
And if possible, to trick the trickster-god,
Or bribe him at least,
Or sleep with him -
It -
Witness the curse, witness the curse, coercion.

4.
A rude iron bell shrilly rings, and a rough screw
Pushes a prisoner down through a stony hall
Bootheels clicking endlessly,
To a 6' by 12' cell, and slams the steel gate shut.
Then the prisoner lies down on his pathetic cot,
Grinds his rigid member against the mattress,
And enters upon more vistas of Virtual Liberty.