J.S. Copeman

A scheduled gathering of random design for state-issued orange dots…

Like windblown convicted spores spread across the prison yard, drifting

Some mingle in groups among the sea of individuals, difference

Most sharing historical fictions and telling pointless autobiographies, deceptions.

Seeking social associations or pleading institutional brotherly bods, devotion

To nothing in all honestly but the sentence they must ultimately–deserve

There’s gregarious Rick greeting his friends as they pass, effusive

And miserable Aaron, the barber of Kincheloe, cutting and complaining, egregious

The Apostle Paul preaching the gospel of the weight pit, ecclesisastic

Bipolar Joe’s chemically maintained moderate mode, egotist

Long-lost George an exile of the Maple Leaf, he finds himself, ejected

finally, persnickety Jack is the walking writer on the wane–egressing

“What they got?” Meaning the menu, the high point of the day, breakfast

Another allotment of “…with potatoes” for lunch and dinner, banal

“Got a tray of sale! Pizza for sale! Let’s trade,” business

“Give you two soups or a soap, maybe two desserts,” barter

“Hell no! Give me your chicken for my cookie and eggs tonight?” bargained

“You’ve got it my man,” to seal the deal they call it a–“Bet.”

Report to the desk, the podium, the Control Center, the sergeant calls, ticket

A written misconduct for unlimited violations in a petty, theatre

Of the absurd to punish the punished which only creates, tension

That’s the only solution they have, it’s nothing but bad, theory

As every day is the same, we’re all just playing the game, thesis

Because in the end it’s really nothing more than simply marking–time.