Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRISON, by RALPH W. HUNTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRISON, by                    
First Line: I am fortunate
Last Line: By prison architects.
Subject(s): Prisons & Prisoners; Convicts


I am fortunate --
My cell confronts a narrow grated window
And my world extends a full one hundred feet
Beyond the worlds of those in other cells
Along the tier.
If I face the bars, and kneel, I can see the sky;
Or I can look across the prison yard
Until a tall stone wall blunts my view.
Below me in the prison yard
I can see the numbered backs of men
Bent to the shovel and the barrow.
They are building, under guard,
Another, larger, prison block --
Eight hundred modern two-men cells.

There are a few cubicles as yet unfilled
In this old block;
And, surely, all these men who neighbor me
Are not forever banned from freeman's world.
Where, then, the prisoners to occupy
Eight hundred modern two-men cells?
Society, confident and progressive,
Builds for the future, content that sixteen hundred
Human riddles will best be solved
By prison architects.





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