Competition

Second Prize

Our Prison Hell
by Sara Grieger

Statues, slouched, we wait, silently, heads hung;
with heavy shoulders, we dread the clock's Ten.

No colour, save the grey of greasy cloths,
limply pendulous on frail, destitute bodies.
Only bodies, lifeless corpses ... structures insignificant;
"Workers”

No sound. No more scratching
Even rats have abandoned us;
sweat the only painful reminder
of the days spent above.

The lifeless city stands. It waits. A feline ready for its prey.

The inescapable steep steps;
Sharp, uninviting; daunting. Ten.
The gates clank. Jaws open. Slowly, as if to tease...
It begins.

Yesterday identical to tomorrow.
Blended endlessly; months, years...
No one knows. No one speaks. No one recalls.
No one cares.

Days hardly separate from nights
Endless chain of work-monotonous, mechanical,
Ticking clock dividing shift from shift
The Ten hour clock.

Slowly, as if hypnotised,
we trudge down, deeper, into this, our world.
Here we work; mechanic as the up, down,
back, forward, round and round of the vigorous machinery.

One of many, marching mindlessly,
identica1 drained, expressionless masks
No names. No family. No hope,
Just a body of bodies, "workers".

Lives cemented into the repetition of work
No longer individuals.
Circles of the human chain, so repetitious
it could draw blood from a stone.

The unforgiving stone,
our never-ending imprisonment, a constant torment
no escaping, going nowhcre,
locked in a world of our own.

On the surface ... above our pale world

Sons of Metropolis lie in a pleasure city while we,
Trapped together, lost, forgotten, hopeless,
March to our underground prison
Our prison hell.