Alive on Goya’s Black Wall
I wake up, after rain,
not in bed.
I feel touched, in all directions,
caught by my love handles, he takes my hand.
Papa stop!
His eyes bulge … frenetic … that suspect me?
Papa’s beard swings like a tick-tock clock.
This fisherman’s hook, then my head chimes loud …
blood pregnable on lips that kissed me once.
Breath drunk in the dark, how no one and no
flood will clean tonight’s sky of black holes. My
breath smells like summer air in dark woods.
Always again, that dream comes …
always still, in that painting peace comes.
The Nature of Prisoners
Under silent fists by the smiles we wait.
Like rats, we shit where we eat; like bats, we
plunder. Hungry, and haughty. And horny.
Like this, we out-animal any zoo.
Our brains age, their dreams age and our names
get harder to say, till no one says them.
Our minds run away.
Get rid of crying.
Cries have become a copy of these walls.
And, like people, the walls don’t give a shit.
Cries, rage and blood.
And, like walls, people corner what they eat.
As I go to bed, the voices of dreams and dreamers bash;
As sleep so viscous pins me down, I close my mind to end the dreams.
The Convenience of Prison Showers
He sees my body, bare in this big room.
(Nobody knew where I was.) (Or, cared.) And now,
he nears. Near me, his feet, his face, and his smell.
Everybody, even the guard, gets out.
His smile slips away the more he’s smiling.
Like ghosts, even the dead haunt my gay house.
This man overwhelms me. With smiles and fists.
Like lobster, he boils me in his body.
My locked door, I have behind it a face,
finds a little throat, and through it, feathered voice
flies screaming like a hawk: that had my jail – justice in
mind – guards in jail, each would not dare
illegalized sex. Nor utilize rape.
When he’s done, it’s convenient
I am already in the shower.
Akiva Israel
Akiva Israel is a prison poet and an artist doing time in a prison for men. The author of SCHOLAR BY THE WARSAW FIRE, and other multidimensional artwork, he was at one point diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder in childhood. Today, he is mistreated and misdiagnosed in the State Prison, where caricatures of his condition and orientation impact those in his situation across the country.
Header image by Agustin Fernandez
