And, It Is

by | Aug 26, 2023 | Detention Center Writing Contests, Poetry

by Ali A.

First place winner, Poetry, Heard/Alexandria Detention Center writing contest, July 2023

(Typed story appears after photo)

B

But, in nature, you always knew/These truths that now you eschew

Spontaneous form and voluptuous curvature/Motifs repeated evergreen from root structure

To odes in nervous human endocrine/Over time that mind that you weaned

Deaf to euphorious harmonies and the Chorus/All thing exclaiming in praise, ‘Adore Us!’

The veins of my wrists blossom and sprout/Blindness compels you to shout

Five-branched canopies in orchestrated complexity/and webbed with poetry

Can disconcerting violence deny/buried seeds their memory of the sky?

Can -ceration erase from me/the lakes or the rivers or the sea?

When I was begotten by the Euphrates/Along it, petal-crowned ancients that raised me

And I flow through the Nile/Collecting Israel’s histories in the meanwhile

Pleiades herself pierced a crack in my cell/to speckle my cheek with her secrets to tell

The weight of squared cages and degreed angles/Cannot force a divorce from my conjugal

inseparable unity with the Natural/traces of the pastoral embedded in my auricle

Perfectly straight lines of cinderblock and concrete/Calculated and approximated for spiritual defeat

Compounded obesity of bloated empire/Iron gear for iron men in iron spires

Cannot overpower the white Song like a roar/Mighty, that carves seabed from seashore

‘Bel’ And, it is/Bare-footed Bedouins

Across the sandy sandscape traversed/The whitling echoes of barren deserts

Clear heavens and dunes of the earth/through realms composed by verse

From heat smelting and amalgamating/Spring forth the cradles of Revelation

After one-hundred generations/Purified by deprivation

Undoing the pretenses of education/Nothing to interfere with contemplation

Then, it is.  Finally-quiet/An ecstatic charged silence

Listen . . . weaving existence is rhapsodic/Every stomata chanting cacophonic

The entire emerald planet rings harmonic/scrambled wild life in phonics

The rhyme scheme of this world/By His Voice that is only heard

By our recitation of His Words/that leave no injustice undisturbed

Primordial electrons in a cloud/Gossiping unborn galaxies’ vibrations aloud

The undying resistance of a martyr uncowed/As she prepares her own burial shroud

The excitement of a virginal wedding chamber/Last living specimen encased ears in amber

From which all of us sprang/From which every veritone and tenor rang

The quantum alphabet of creation apprehended/So that everything would be suspended

The totality of the cosmos, unfettered/it all strung between only two letters

When silent crowds gather at a disconcert/Solitary cells cradle us like a desert

Then, it is, Finally – / quiet.

E

Poor to the Wealthy

by | Aug 26, 2023 | Detention Center Writing Contests, Poetry

by Candie Calix

Poetry, Heard/Alexandria Detention Center writing contest, July 2023

(Typed version appears below the photo)

How Do You Let Go Of The Pain

The Scars Are Way Too Deep

Your Heart has a permanent Stain

And There Are Secrets You Still Keep . . .

Then you get locked up & put out of sight

You try to turn off right away

But your soul is starting an inner fight

You have a purpose they say . . .

Looking around are you talking to me?

No way not with all my sin

You got it wrong it can’t be

I always lose never win . . .

How could God want me

Better yet My Child how could I not

I felt that inner voice plea

Thats why I had you get caught . . .

For when the test is over it will make your testimony

Oh OK yeah right

To me that couldn’t have sounded more phony

Poor to the Wealthy

And I launched into fight or flight . . .

The Conviction in my heart grew

A mustard seed of faith they say

And I just knew

I needed to try his way . . .

There is no pain from you he can’t take

He is called the Chain Breaker for a reason

That’s why he died on the stake

He carries us through the Bad Seasons . . .

Baby Steps is a start

Remember the sick need the Dr. not the healthy

And From your side he will never part

Because his love is free from the . . .

Poor to the Wealthy

Correct

by | Sep 16, 2022 | Detention Center Writing Contests, Poetry

Correct

by Christ Joshua M. Fletcher

Poetry, Arlington County Detention Facility/Heard/OAR writing contest, August 2022

 

Correct does it need to be corrected

Correctly has no matter being correction

When a newborn entered its life healthy it’s correct.

As its life have see’s other live’s doing or has done wrong & not applied to it is corrected.

Being aware of the unwealthy & still live correctly does not have time nor space

being within correction.

As thee matter which means subject, object, or person taking up space needs to be corrected.

Correctly when & or as not applied an person of correction will address you correct.

Well no-thing’s nothing will appear & as nobody even no one shall arrive to have you corrected.

Even each entire Dept. sheriff correction officer will be corrected.

Head of chain of command leads correctly

by male man made laws correct, confirm, complete, correction, corrected,

CORRECTLY!?…

Poem from the <3 Heart by myself - Balance of Life

by | Sep 16, 2022 | Detention Center Writing Contests, Poetry

by Thomas Carlos Felder, Jr.

Poetry, Arlington County Detention Facility/Heard/OAR writing contest, August 2022

 

They see balance and they want to challenge or damage.

Thy heart <3 wants thy mind can’t percieve,

Bring in this state of pandemic a lot

of people run off envy and greed.

Our children look up to us

To balance their lives,

but from sitting in a 4×6 cell,

They can’t see how much we cry.

A true balance of life metaphoricly speaking

sometimes our heart <3 will die within.

We all miss our kin

Sometimes we have to tell our children,

beautiful lies to keep them happy inside.

Once is all it takes to upsetting thier normal lives,

That’s why it’s a must to have balance of life! 😊

 

 

 

Brothers

by | Sep 16, 2022 | Detention Center Writing Contests, Poetry

by Hassen Hassen

Poetry, Arlington County Detention Facility/Heard/OAR writing contest, August 2022

 

How can we protect our goals;

When we are not being keepers of each other souls?

Obsessed with our past;

too blind to see our present.

Too caught up in current trash;

To understand our future’s present.

In a tureen; lost in a sea of oblivion;

looking for away out; out this morass material.

Reaching for a hand; to pull us up.

Event a rope or a ladder might make us jump.

Shedding tears of joy; and smiles of sorrow;

painfully hoping and happily despiring.

With pain so deep, like the marrow’s in our bones;

And comradery so fake, like a cartoon’s souls.

We both hungry for just a little refuge;

But, all we feed each other is plates of subterfuge.

Brainwashed to inure less;

When we are supposed to be our best.

How do we protect our goals;

When we are not keepers of each other souls?

So, place me deep, where you look within;

abyssed in your soul when you need a friend.

Place it dearly next to your heart,

But never negated when we are apart.

And even thought we have different mothers;

That doesn’t mean we can’t be prison brothers.