What's a prisoner to do when justice fails
and the innocent is escorted off to jail?

What's a prisoner to do once stigmatized,
caged and abandoned and ostracized?

What's a prisoner to do there’s no one to trust;
the system fails and the outcome unjust?

What’s a prisoner to do when family decide
the punishment is warranted and justified?

What's a prisoner to do while confined in a cell;
the perpetrator's free and faring quite well?

What's a prisoner to do once his reputation is dead
and his life has been ruined because of what someone said?

What's a prisoner to do when he's not believed,
though he's telling the truth, he's thought to deceive?

What's a prisoner to do as he sits all alone,
no one seems to care; former friends all gone?

What's a prisoner to do sitting lost and idle
and most of one's thoughts become suicidal?

What's a prisoner to do when freedom's taken away
and the will to live diminishes each day?

What's a prisoner to do when hedged in by strife;
with no escape possible; no chance for a new life?

What's a prisoner to do when he can no longer see
the beauty of the sky or the waves of the sea?

What's a prisoner to do when the sun he can't feel,
nor the breeze of spring because his fate is sealed?

What's a prisoner to do when doomed to despair
but still praying to escape the electric chair?

Tell me, what’s a prisoner to do?

Rev. Saundra L. Washington, D.D., is an ordained clergywoman, veteran social worker, and Founder of AMEN Ministries. She is also the author of two coffee table books: Room Beneath the Snow: Poems that Preach and Negative Disturbances: Homilies that Teach which can be reviewed on her site. Her new book, Out of Deep Waters: My Grief Management Workbook, is expected to be available in July.

You are welcome to visit AMEN Ministries: Your Souls’ service Station for spiritual refreshing, soul edification or to browse our newly expanded mini shopping mall. http://www.clergyservices4u.org.

Blessings to all!

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• Ballade of an Inca King


• In The Midst Of All


• Two Poems: San Jeronimo Brook & [in English and Spanish]


• Mechanical Poetry - Part Three


• Three Love Poems [all wicked]


• To My Friend, With Love


• Five Mixed Poems, with Notes [now is Spanish and English]


• Two Poems on the Traditions of Peru [in English and Spanish]


• Mechanical Poetry; Part Two