Plain Potato Chip
The pleasure of a plain potato chip
After weeks of sensory deprivation
The transparent thinness
Ephemeral crunch
The taste of hot oil and fried potato
The boldness of salt
Solitary
Solitary ain’t so bad
At least
there is privacy
Transposed
A fast walk across concrete
My greedy strides consume
ground like eager travel
with places to go
Winter air fills my nose
dry, savory, smokiness
sweet wood and cold stone
I hurl myself forward
Back to my first day in Tokyo
Flying across unknown streets
with all the wonder and excitement
And pleasure of being in the world
Tapping
A child is tapping on my glass
Angrily, insistently
Shake my fishbowl
Stand up! Do what I say!
The New Zoo
Inside my cage I roar and I rage
The animals hoot and bellow
Their yells and screams
Shake the walls and seams
Tako
Octopus escaping onto the cooking street
Walking by our eyes happen to meet
Tentacles freeze climbing o’er the side
Prairie
Warm beer on the prairie
Seas of waving grass
A vast ocean of blue sky
A Mongol horselord riding
Across an endless world
The New World
Rivers toll towards the Great Middle Sea
Valleys engineered by AI Dreams
Boomtown ports of the New Humanity
Prison Art
There’s a Charizard in Segregation Cell 210
It’s so big, across the wall and ceiling
10 feet off the ground
I don’t even know
How it was drawn up there
Flaming breath and iconic tail
Claws, wings, and fangs
It’s the best Charizard I’ve ever seen
It fills me with wonder
I’m lucky to be here
Like my first Artists’ Alley
or step onto Akiba’s streets
Surrounded by filth and prisoners’ screams
It’s a peaceful and Holy scene
Merry Christmas
On my way to court
I saw a homeless sweep
Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
On my way from prison to court
I passed a homeless sweep
polo shirts, always standing around
poor workers in reflective vests
picking up trash, belongings, clothes,
haul away tents, meds, lives
Neighbors shuffle away
they carry on, shelter gone
2 days before Christmas
And a Happy New Year
New Year
I stay up on New Years
To watch the first sunrise
Not always, but often
Sometimes, I’ll climb a roof
Lay on slanted black shingles
It doesn’t matter much
But it’s a symbolic action
One I choose
To orient myself
First Sunrise
The barest hint of scarlet-pink tints the first sky
Long thin clouds streak pink like ruled lines
the sun’s rise brings on a deep purple hue
till the windows on the opposite prison wall
reflect peach colored sky above dark slopes
like gentle volcanoes; the sunrise above Maui
the morning finally brings blue and violet into the world
it brings the tan of Texas buildings and Texas dirt
and silvery rolls of shining barbed wire
the brake lights of the security car slowly roll by
wide bands stretch out light across the sky
and move like fingers grasping the world
windows change from tropics to sterile whites
revealing old rusted iron bars
all the colors now meet
a layered quilt, pink, red, black, purple, orange, blue, and white
Finally, I see trees in the distance
Dark, shapelessness resolving into green
the grasping hand of clouds has gone
Is it hidden or dissipated?
Faerie Cat
Faerie Cat
upon my lap
How fae loves to play
massages and naps
Fae love to relax
we whittle the time away
Cooking, experiments, and steeping our tea
we eat feasts and treats
Kimchis and hotpots
pasta, chocolate, and soup
We could run a vegan buffet.
Our kisses and hugs
Fae love affection and joy
history, mystery, myths, stories, and maps
We talk together all day
Now you have gone
to an iron cage
Taken, maeve ‘the fae’
magik sealed and hidden away
The realm of our life
still burns brightly today
A world of our Sun
and our rainy days
We can’t be kept long
we reach out our hands
And rejoin them soon
to return to the people
And other cats
who await the end of our stay
My love
My lover
And my best friend
I long to see
the fire in your eyes again
all at once
Time is a circle
Not a straight line
Our warmest embrace
Happening yesterday
Still happening today
Will go on tomorrow
Benjamin Song 1137512
FMC Fort Worth
PO Box 15330
Fort Worth, TX 76119
Mongoose Distro 