A NEW POEM

Here's a new poem from Charlie;

we hope you enjoy it, and we welcome your comments.

Libby

PRISON: THE REALITY SHOW

by Charles Patrick Norman

The producer, director, video and sound men

follow me down the catwalk to my cell.

I don’t like the idea of this going live

around the world, but, what the hell.

“This is great stuff,” the producer says,

As I turn from the camera to take a piss.

The sound guy holds the mic down by the bowl,

As I flush, he says, “This shot we don’t want to miss.”

The bell rings twice, chow time, we file out down the hall,

Other prisoners step out of our way with odd looks.

They’ve been told what will happen if they interfere at all,

After lunch, it’s the library to check out some books.

They tell me to head to the yard in search of some action,

A thousand rough men without shirts work out and run.

The tech crew will edit my talks with one faction,

Two groups start fighting like gladiators in the sun.

They shoot closeups of bloody men with stab wounds,

I had to cut a couple myself to make it look good.

The guards fired warning shots and scattered tear gas,

When that didn’t stop them they broke out the wood.

We helped haul the worst injured to the prison clinic,

The nurse took a smoke break, so I did some stitches.

The producer was giddy at the thought of such ratings,

I was tempted to give them to the bikers as bitches.

Later on they took shots of prison wine and some drinking,

Some cons broke out the weed and began smoking.

They video’d soaped-up men in the shower without thinking,

When the scene got x-rated they realized the boys were not joking.

While the cameras were running the crew got tattoos.

The warden took off, said he didn’t want to know.

He was going to a bar to get tanked on real booze,

And left me to live in the prison reality show.