The Prison

By Jude Chukwuemeka Muoneke

Home of the helpless
Built with a corrugated irons
The innocent incarcerated
For a pardonable crime.

In court sittings
Judges bribed,
They twist and thwart the truth
The voiceless cry for a voice.

Many a soul
Wallows in pains and misery
Over the crime,
They never committed.

Though the prisons are in sizes
Mansion and edifice for the opulent,
Match house boxes for the impecunious
Crimes are in stratum.

Like Evans the anointed kidnapper
Whose arrest and cases cried aloud
His imprisonment a folktale dinner
His accuser’s voice mute.

The poor are voiceless and helpless
In the cacophony of their match
house boxes,
Their hearts in need of a voice
To silence their oppressors.

For how long will a soul weep?
For eternity?
In prison souls converted
or enslave to sin.

When eventually released
The society feels their presence
Positively or negatively,
We are the artichects of our woes.

This Poem Features In: