Moundsville Prison

It’s the smell rotten books and peeling paint
paintings of better times are left in
hallways and mess halls
etched sandstone from the original 100
after West Virginia first became a state

alone for 22 and half hours a day
in 5 x7 cells- the worst of the worst
or so the plucky guide with a twang says

it’s crude naked women farting rainbows
in a cell that no one can see except
through the camera.
rusting stairways, empty caged crow’s nest
ghosts of the armed men
the screaming and flushing toilets are lost in imagination

shuffling from one block to another
to the sunshine filled yard where life could
almost be normal.

Stories of riots, blood and murder
behind steel bars and the blood has been
long gone
now just stories in the dark.

It’s the step into a place where you are sure
there are ghosts but don’t reach out touch you
and the chill comes from outside

And you wonder about the ghosts and why
they only come out at night.
It’s always night through the bars
and steel cages.

Stepping back into the entrance.
In sunshine, beyond the barb wire
the prison shines and across the street
a native burial mound.

***
Hey all, here is day seven's poem. I know it's a little late, but I was tired when I got back home last night. I am caught up, just need to work on today's poem, which I will be working on shortly. Find more great poets at NaPoWriMo