Prisoner
Prisoner - meaning Summary
Confinement and Resilience
The poem depicts physical and psychological imprisonment, alternating images of harsh confinement—bars, guards, clangs, concrete—and fragile sunlight and sleep as small acts of resistance. Refrains emphasize cyclical routines: arrest, detention, the need to run. The speaker shifts between external brutality and inner life, where memory, dreams, and private selfhood provide shelter from fear and dehumanization. Overall it balances oppression with moments of endurance and inner refuge.
Read Complete AnalysesEven sunlight dares and trembles through my bars to shimmer dances on the floor. A clang of lock and keys and heels and blood-dried guns. Even sunshine dares. It's jail and bail then rails to run. Guard grey men serve plates of rattle noise and concrete death and beans. Then pale sun stumbles through the poles of iron to warm the horror of grey guard men. It's jail and bail then rails to run. Black night. The me myself of me sleeks in the folds and history of fear. To secret hold me deep and close my ears of lulls and clangs and memory of hate. Then night and sleep and dreams. It's jail and bail then rails to run.
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