prison flower (after Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead)
flower weaves around the bars of an iron fence prisoners
peering through to freedom where they trudge the drum
beating along the morning air crisp as an old broken bone.
Sirotkin rustles up from the bed one eye yawning to
the morning drum ready for breakfast cold water cold
porridge piss behind the barracks and into the square
to be counted. a hundred and fifty men they find their heads
shaved to the skin old coats tattered blowing
in the wind where the eagle soars overhead a vulture
looking down camera eye on the prison whirring
its inhabitants going out to work for the day digging
ditches irrigation tunnels heft clay bricks camera
pans down on Sirotkin smoking a cigarette by the barracks
his line moves forward with a dark pull where the drum beats
and the sergeant hollers stick in hand a dark eye camera
turns with the vulture eagle eye looking down.
move freedom where they move forward with the bed one eye
camera turns where they find the drum beats
into the square looking down they trudge piss behind the
barracks his line moves around their heads
shaved to the skin old water coats tattered a dark eye
yawning along to the vulture eagle soars overhead a vulture
to be counted. a hundred in the day digging
its inhabitants going by the cigarette in the barracks
his line moves down around the morning down camera
pans down blowing ditches irrigation its inhabitants
going air crisp an iron fence prison whirring skin of old
water cold porridge piss behind the day digging ditches
irrigation its inhabitants going the square looking
along to the bed one eye on tunnels heft clay bricks and old
water broken bone. Sirotkin old broken bone. Sirotkin
rustles up from the prison whirring
they trudge the sergeant hollers stick in hand fifty men
into the vulture eagle eye yawning along through to
the skin smoking out to work forward with the day digging
its inhabitants going down camera turns with the barracks
his line morning cigarette by the skin rustles up from the
drum
beats and blowing ditches irrigation the drum beating
blowing irrigation tunnels heft clay bricks an iron fence
prisoners peering the skin old water cold water coats
tattered
and the skin old water cold porridge their head a dark pull
where the morning air crisp as fifty men the day digging
the eagle soars overhead shaved to work for breakfast cold
porridge piss behind where the wind the prison irrigation
whirring
tunnels heft clay bricks camera turns with a dark eye on
Sirotkin
rustles up from the eagle eye yawn.
Lachlan J McDougall is an experimental poet, artist, and prose technician living and working in Ipswich, Australia. The author of a number of books and pamphlets, their work can be found on amazon.com or at lachlanjmcdougall.wordpress.com.