The Bandit

Upon his way to rob a Bank
He paused to watch a fire;
Though crowds were pressing rank on rank
He pushed a passage nigher;
Then sudden heard, piercing and wild,
The screaming of a child.
A Public Enemy was he,
A hater of the law;
He looked around for bravery
But only fear he saw;
Then to the craven crowds amaze
He plunged into the blaze.
How anguished was the waiting spell
Of horror and of pain!
Then--then from out that fiery hell
He staggered forth again:
The babe was safe, in blankets wrapt,
The man flame lapt.
His record was an evil one,
Of violence and sin.
No good on earth he'd ever done,
Yet--may he Heaven win!
A gangster he . . . Is it not odd?
--With guts of God.

by Robert William Service

There Is A God

fast train from ne033x on Vimeo.

This poem may not rhyme,
It may not say what a poem should;
And the only reason I'm writing it
Is because a friend asked if I woukld.
So many things have been said and done
In this life of mine:
Some good to be embraced -
Most better left behind.
But, the truth is, And I'll say this but once;
Life is truly beautiful
If we just give it a chance!

Right now, my heart is broken,
Laying, crushed on the floor;
There's no reason for me to carry on -
What reason is there for?
I know where I've been -
I know where I am;
You can't imagine the pain
That I must muster just to stand.
Yet, stand I do,
And speak, I must;
For a message to share -
In what I've come to trust...

My heart has been broken
More times than you know;
By life, by man,
By even my ego.
I've spent two years
In a loneliness you can't imagine;
Unless you've been in solitary confinement
In a man made prison.
I've lost me soul mate
Just weeks before we were wed -
Do you know what it's like to really lose,
"I'm sorry, Danny, she's dead."
I've lost my children,
Everyone sees me as a thug;
When they were my hope -
My reason for getting off drugs...

Right now,
Even as I speak these words;
I don't ask for sympathy -
Just maybe that one person heard.
My love is gone -
Once again I feel pain;
Yet I stand tall and proud -
Faith in something beyond this rain...

There is a God!
I've felt Him here with me;
It's what carries me on
When I should have broke free.
There is a God -
I wish I could show you the way!
You'd break free right now
 And escape your yesterday!

My dreams keep me going -
Right here and right now,
A brighter tomorrow -
Of this, I vow.

I love you, Dara,
And I understand you had to move on;
For Blaze and everything good -
Beyond what we knew was wrong.

by ne033x aka Danny Watson

Voice Of An Angel

I commited so much crime,
It was pretty much like a flood...
And then one day i shot the wrong way
And I shed an innocent person's blood...

Now, the cops had me surrounded
There was nowhere I could go...
So, I threw down my gun
And got on the ground real low...

Well, they cuffed me and they stuffed me,
And then they hauled me away...
And they locked me in an ice cold cell
Until my trial day...

Now, the courts proved I was a terrible person,
You see...
So, the jury found me guilty
And the judge threw the book at me...

The sentence I received was harsh,
he gave me twenty-five to life...
I knew right then and there,
I've lost my children and my wife...

So, from that moment on
It seemed like all I could do was cry...
Because everything I love I've lost
And I just wanted to die...

Then I heard this voice
Ask me why I'm falling apart...
I said, because I'm lost and alone,
There's emptiness in my heart...

This voice said, If I accept Jesus as my savior,
Then he will come to be...
The one who fills my heart with love
And truly sets me free..

So, I listened to this voice
And I did everything just right...
And before I fell asleep
The Lord came to me that night...

And now that he has set me free
And helped lift me from my hell...
I owe a thanks
To the voice of an angel in my cell...


by Robert A. Vorce aka Tony
(written at OSP - Oregon State Penitentiary - 2001)

Mauvais Quart D'heure

Bitter cold was the day -
You could see your breath in the air;
Shivering beneath a thin wool blanket
And the government jumpsuit that I wear.
The silence is haunting,
Interrupted only by footsteps down the hall;
I wish I had something to read
Besides the cries written on these walls.
My memories are all that I have now,
And a very tiny sliver of hope keeps me going;
I think that because of the cold
Outside this cell, it must be snowing.
I had to break the ice in the toilet,
This morning like every other;
And I wish I could tell someone of this frozen hell,
If even a phone call home to mother.
At meals, I can just see the eyes of my bro,
Through the tiny food slot in the cell across the way;
He's talking less and less,
And his eyes seem to die a little more every day.
I don't know how long we've been here;
It's been at least a month, I know,
Since the night they chained us up
And carried us down here from the hole.
I don't know how long I can hold on,
I'm feeling weaker with every single day;
But I know I must stay strong
For my dying brother across the way.
There's about thirty of us down here,
Maybe more, I just don't know;
They had us packed like sardines in the cellhouse -
Maybe a hundred or so?
We spent Christmas and New Years,
Four of us to a tiny prison cell;
Until that night they carried us down here,
One by one, to this frozen hell.
I'd only been in prison a few months
When a riot broke out one winter morning;
It was December nineteenth,
And the entire prison was taken over without warning.
National Guard and Federal Agents came,
My unit was the second one to be hit;
They fired tear gas canisters in on us,
And that was all she writ.
We couldn't breath and couldn't see -
Snot poured out our tortured nose;
And I got hit especially bad
From a canister fired in too close.
They beat us with clubs and tied up our wrists,
We surrendered without a fight;
And I was taken with some of my bros
To the old cellhouse late that night.
And now I'm in this ice cold cell,
My mind slowly slipping away;
And all I can do is try to hold on
As I try to survive just one more day.
I try to do anything to feel somehow alive,
I pace the length of this eight foot concrete floor;
I wait on the daily meals and a little warmth
When just three times a day they open that tiny slot
To feed us through that solid steel door.


by Danny Watson aka ne033x