| The Prisoners | |
Poem By: Robert Hayden | Views: 263 | Word Count: 98 | View PDF | Print View |
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Steel doors – guillotine gates –
of the doorless house closed massively.
We were locked in with loss.
Guards frisked us, marked our wrists,
then let us into the drab Rec Hall –
splotched green walls, high windows barred –
where the dispossessed awaited us.
Hands intimate with knife and pistol,
hands that had cruelly grasped and throttled
clasped ours in welcome. I sensed the plea
of men denied: Believe us human
like yourselves, who but for Grace ...
We shared reprieving Hidden Words
revealed by the Godlike imprisoned
One, whose crime was truth.
And I read poems I hoped were true.
It's like you been there, brother, been there,
the scarred young lifer said.
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About the Author Robert Hayden (1913 - 1980), born Asa Bundy Sheffey in Detroit, Michigan, was raised in a slum called Paradise Valley. Hayden's parents separated soon after his birth and he became the foster child of Sue Ellen Westerfield... Read Robert Hayden's Full Biography
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