Another post-release poem in a similar style to the other two. I seem to be recovering some inspiration! Please say you like, if you do. Please subscribe if you would like to improve conditions in prison in the UK.
Place Called Home
I dreamt of these moments before
Through nights of torment when prisoners scream
Negating the noise of metal door
Searching for consciousness beyond bad dream
Lingering on the landings of linoleum
Desperately trying to imagine the sensation
Of the odour of vehicular waste petroleum
And the rush of the commuters’ walk to the station
By an accident of judicial bureaucracy
I report to the police every weekday
“Good morning” announced to this servant of democracy
And such similar words as he feels he must say
We are agreed little purpose to the bracelet on my leg
For I will return to that place called home
This luxury for which any prisoner would beg
Back to our self-made pleasure dome
Having lived in many places
And returned from foreign faraway lands
Where strangers had become familiar faces
Now there are the welcoming hands
Of neighbours too embarrassed to talk
They wave and smile, some ready to forgive
Or comment on my morning walk
Was prison a home or just another place to live?
Home is so much more than a house
It’s a place where we can feel free
Wherein one can comfortably laugh or grouse
Where the person inside us has a place to be
It’s the road outside and the garden fence
Next door’s cat that leaves his trace
All part of liberty’s recompense
Home is a word that defines freedom’s place