For years and years and years, there was talk about a cell block tango,
but it was good and quiet within these cinder blocks,
and even though there were no pins to drop,
to prove my point,
I knew that the hush that came at dusk each night was a silent treaty,
a peace offering from my Maker,
This was all my doing,
and once, when I was little, I asked my Maker if he could remove all the thunder from the world,
and I told him that I thought it would be a better place,
because children like me wouldn't be scared to live their lives,
and in here on the green mile,
with my one foot in front of the other,
I am reminded that this is now a fuck you,
to me,
of course
The night before my last supper with my Maker,
I laid awake in my tenement room,
contemplating all the ways my outcomes were predetermined disappointments,
so I surgically removed my ability to smile,
and at first,
there was a lot of blood,
but it was only right,
after all,
it did take two to tango,
and here,
just before dawn,
I could smell the blue horizon,
full of nothing but apparitions of your accomplice,
your friend and his sowing of sorts,
and my neighbor, the warden
Love the vivid imagery and the tension you've built in the main character. Is the last stanza a window into some mistaken guilt? Is this character innocent? When you write, "full of nothing but apparitions of your accomplice", are you speaking of a crime that has happened already? Or are you speaking to death and saying that the warden is its accomplice? My favorite line is this:
ReplyDeleteAnd here,
just before dawn,
I could smell the blue horizon
The idea of combining the sense of smell and sight here is extremely intriguing. You are almost granting the character with a lucidity beyond human capability, as if he's already passed on to the next world. Smelling the blue horizon – something he should only be able to see – adds a level of surreality to the piece that is aptly placed in the conclusive lines.