Every line is an iron bar
Every breath my sentence
Each word like an open scar
Revealed in ways relentless
I've read these walls a million times
Patterns of pain in unending stanzas
There is no window on the scene
of a heart used up
in unanswered dreams
The calliope plays on
It is a distant memory
of inspiration waning
for someone who thought
they were free
But the poet heart
is a cage of words
And an empty stomach
is an empty page
Here the floor is cold
and my feet are numb
Life moves nowhere fast;
not since the pen was young