Handcuffs, shackles, meat wagon,
pass the city limit signs, down highway seven;
and like a Wecome Mat,
gun towers, barbed wire, electric fences.
It’s a place where time
is counted in nickles and dimes.
And I remember a young man playing the guitar,
I would stop and say, how goes it future rock star?
And in return a happy go lucky smile-
“See you tomorrow.”
But what you see is not always as it seems,
when what one feels becomes too intense;
and from the prison pews, came the morning news,
Brian gave up the fight,
and slipped away, somewhere in the night.
Truth be told, I can’t say we were friends,
or that I knew him well;
but it’s sad to know he died alone,
in a cell of concrete and steel.
In the keeper’s log book it is written,
statistic, just another casualty of life,
and by days end all is forgotten,
as we kiss our children goodnight.
I think of his family,
a dad, a mom,
who now with heavy hearts
walked a funeral procession,
and buried their son.
kaleidoscopeonline.ca 