Hello. This is Steven Lynn Nicholson again in Jackson, Michigan. Got a few poems for you today. As always, support Prisonradio.org. Support Prisoner Creative Arts Program. Shout out to any of them who are listening. I don’t know if I’ll see you this semester. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.
This first poem is called “Automatic Steve.” It’s inspired by picking three objects, which were my dad’s leather belt, my mom’s cigarette pack, and she didn’t smoke, and a cruise ship. So I wrote this poem off of those three objects.
Automatic Steve
At the cost of sounding like a head case
emo kid at a loss for words,
I’ll try and limit my words.
If I got back from my third grade,
Miss Magruders class,
Who had such a nice smile,
And I loved that,
And I walked in the house to the back
And saw a different brand of cigarette pack
I knew my dad had acted an ass.
Now, my good-grade-getting smart-aleck-butt,
Wanted to get back.
I was cruising for a bruising.
My dad had a solution.
Four inch wide leather belt
Engraved with cowboys and Indians
For my smart-aleck butt
To now look like a Western movie.
I believe this stressin’ at age seven caused me
To relent to dreams of epiphany,
Reoccurring nightmares for years
Of me and future family
On a cruise ship.
I lost them all over and over.
That was “Automatic Steve”.
This is a poem where you write six lines and then you make them into one poem. It’s called, “If I Ran the World.”
If I Ran the World
Freedom would reign like the farmer
And the latter reign.
The manacles of frustration
We currently see from nation to nation,
We’ve begun erasing.
Vagrants can have their own nation.
Layman’s get all funds needed for sustaining
Because it really takes a village, my babies.
Buoyancy of hope will no longer be a dream
Where the man says nope.
To rewind my scope of influence
Back when I was so truant
Nas was an influence,
And if I ruled the world,
I’d free all my sons,
Because I really do love them,
Love them, baby.
So let’s imagine this lovely day
Like Bill Withers sang, “You kick back while it’s gravy
and where it’s shady.”
That’s “If I Ran the World.”
This next poem is inspired by the “Caged Bird.” Maya, Angelou. It’s called “Caged Voice.”
Caged Bird
Throats open for so long
To scream about
Anything,
Whatever,
Life in general.
These throats became sepulchers,
A song
Throng
To the masses of ears,
Long gone.
Graveyard melodies of the soul
Were truly so bold
When death was seen around the corner
From the day they were born.
Imagine the ability
From conception
To know,
And I mean actual internalization
Of being hated,
That your days and time are dated.
Yet, into this life you just made it.
I’m talking even as a baby, y’all.
And we wonder why we see this country,
This world, in a cataclysmic fall.
When a fire starts and is left to smolder,
It eventually crosses all borders.
Nobody’s safe.
All because the elite wanted to be,
And I quote,
“Safe.”
“Caged Voice.” Thank you.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
