Monthly Archives: January 2016

Jail Poems – Lindsey Cooper

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These poems are all in Hidden Voices, a magazine put out by East London Women Against Prison, November 1981.

Jail Poems (1)

winter smell
of rain in courtyard and
dusty places between walls
on sparse weeds in
cracked cement
a year later
i’m suprised to find
it smells the same on the outside

Jail Poems (2)

how did i get here
white tiles
concrete cold floor
dim bulb
chill
smell
stale cleanness of
disinfectant
pan in corner
how did i get here
succession of big men
led me
firmly by the elbow
through corridors
big men
in shapeless shit brown clothes
questioned me across
desks in flourescent rooms
disinterested
sympathetic
and bored
drove me here and there
talking of t.v.
their wives
promotion
then brought me here
i think
or some other place
the same
how did i get here
how did i get here
in the half sleep of
shock
wrap my coat
tight
tomorrow they’ll take it away

Jail Poems (3)

smell of bean stew
trudge
smell of feet
into the chapel
be thankful unto
the lord all ye lands
200 blasts of halitosis
trudge
in big
odd broken
boots
trudge around the yard
soft rain
trudge
round the galleries
loose boot nails
clinking on slate
muttering
shuffeling
laughing at farts
in cathedral gloom
a polished mirror in
grey uniform in
a grey place
doing grey time
feeling bad
but not too
bad
grasping
at each small event

an x-ray
an egg
a visit
a bellyache
makes me feel human

Jail Poems (4)

endless afternoons
another day
and no letter

window
too high to see
sound of rain

saying bless me
alone
with a cold

between
buildings
a little sun

one day
may i see
the other face of that tree

caring alike
for all men
mess hall sparrow

Prisoner