Notes from Exile

Log/Verse: daily reflections from prison, written every morning at my bunk. Part poem, part log book.

Every morning, before work or count, I sat at my bunk and wrote what I called log/verse. I didn’t know iambic pentameter from a weather vane—words just spilled out in primitive forms. These aren’t polished narratives. They’re hybrid scribblings of prose poems and stream-of-consciousness outpourings, meant to overcome the inherent ineffability of the penal experience.

They aim to convey a visceral semblance of prison life—its routines, trauma, and shifting emotional center of gravity. This series shares them as I first wrote them—raw and unedited.

Prisoners Lament

You arrive in a state of disbelief and anguished farewells,
a pervasive unease as the door closes behind you.

You’re given a uniform, an uncomfortable swaddling cloak,
prey and predators lurking like creatures in the canyons
of the seabed and it's mysterious leagues.

There are no mornings, only dreaded waking,
a grim seizure of place and confinement,
and sleep no measure of solace, it's prospect of
turmoil and dreams that always find their breath.

Over time yearning and longing find their way to cruel
memory, false hope and the sad delirium of counting days.