Issue 4, January 2008

Open Twenty-four hours, seven days a week
Winter, Spring ,Summer and Fall
with an insatiable appetite for human cargo
Enter me and your life will surely stall!

I am tried and true, very capable
of breaking down nerves of steel
I have made the defiant compliant in a very short time
I am well known for shattering the human will!

Stealing hope often, whenever I can
bringing the strongest to their knees
Welcoming the same faces back, again and again
I'm so glad they are blind and cannot see!

My population is fueled mostly by minorities
of many different hues and shades
The parade of casualties in the war on drugs &
Victims of "Lady Justice's" blind charade!

I have no regard for families and loved ones
Mothers, Fathers, Daughters and Sons
I hope I'm able to hold them captive, too
Constantly continuing a cycle that has begun!

Though I can't smile or show my joy
I'm filled with happiness to have you here
I thrive off the many negative emotions displayed
your sadness, anger, despair and fear

Some look at me and shake their heads
Thinking it's a damned disgrace and shame
I stare right back with the same impassive stare
well aware of all the tricks of this trade

Eventually I get my man or woman
catching them hook, line and sinker
Unless of course they do the right thing
Exercising their brain, becoming a serious thinker

But always remember I'm sitting right here
running and operating on human cargo that gives me power
I'm the big modern plantation house that's in a remote place
Surrounded by barbed fences, lights and gun towers

I will greet you with a strip search
very pleased that you came
If you don't know who I am by now
Allow me to share my name.... I am Prison"!