Double murderers, <br />every crime imaginable <br />men eaten with remorse <br />prisoners of their own misdeeds <br />without hope of redemption <br />or forgiveness, <br />locked in a circle <br />of punishment without pardon, <br />until Shakespeare entered like thin air through the ether <br />of the State Correction Home, <br />and got the inmates to change their <br />clothes, little did they suspect, <br />the storm about to break, <br />as Prospero and cast <br />came to life inside the prison walls; <br />and forgotten men grown old within <br />their prime, were touched, <br />by words that stretched <br />through four hundred years...... <br />of time and space, <br />and woke them from despair <br />of not knowing, <br />not knowing if forgiveness <br />had forsaken them….. <br />not knowing where it would dawn. <br /> <br />For no officials of redemption, <br />or correction, <br />Knew just what to say <br />to men in another world <br />but not completely lost <br />in the darkness, <br />of the prisoners hell. <br /> <br />The Tempest raged within their breast <br />flooding tears, <br />howls of remorse <br />released them from the <br />grips of reproach, <br />and men grown old <br />in prisons loveless dungeons <br />wept on stage, <br />as though they had never known <br />how to weep <br />for a thousand years, <br />and found they had but themselves <br />to forgive <br />for being in the sway <br />of something other than <br />The one Self in all. <br /> <br />How else would William know? <br />how to speak to them in their cells <br />and tell them where, <br />forgiveness lies? <br /> <br /> <br />And thus speak them free men. <br />Never to return; <br />To the darkness. <br /> <br />(idea from the film Shakespeare Behind Bars) <br />.<br /><br />Wojja Fink<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shakespeare-behind-bars/
