Life Sentence

They gave me life.

I’m looking at a stretch

of another forty years.

Sixty, if I display

good behaviour.

Could be eighty,

if I pack in the cigs

and find out some veteran secrets.

 

I run a hand idly along the bars.

 

They reverberate with memories

ghosts rattling chains

on leather adorned with locks that

Snap Crackle Pop

soggy cereal

is what wet leaves felt like underfoot

on the way to school

shoe shopping before air conditioning

was a widespread notion.

Do the locomotion with me.

Falling asleep at Discos

crisp packets sparkled magically

unlike flat rabbits disappearing at parties

where you were supposed to join in

 

and this could go on forever

because art galleries have no limits

when you’re the lone spectator.

Meandering

pondering

nonsensical pretension

masquerading as spontaneous intellect.

 

There are more ways to die than live

if you’re inventive.

Each day probably spawns another

new batch; galloping abreast technology

towards the black ribbon finish.

 

Slit wrists

Shark attack

Poisoning

Plane crash

Assassination

Stray bullet

Strangulation

O.D on tablets

Suffocation

Natural disaster

Lethal injection

Suicide bomber

Starvation

Gun misfire

Alien invasion

Stuck in freezer

Unattended infection

Collapsed tower

Electrocution

All types of cancer

Decapitation

Wrong answer

 

 

They gave me life.

I had no say in the matter.

 

Now I’m contemplating good behaviour.

 

Author's Note

This doesn't work as well as I'd like it to - any suggestions? Thanks.

Reviews

[lostintheworld]

so it's the sentence you think
that inspired the will to live
cuase that just doenst work for me in my head

cuase after she says that, she mentions good behavior
which lends us to assume she might be wanting out now

so are you sugessting murder gets her put in (and suicide like killing an alter ego or voice) and then she wants to be out cuase now she's free of those voices?

[lostintheworld]

why wrong answer
hmmmm

more ways to die than live- like in that movie we just saw- member i told you that was a similar line to c boylans poem
score.

[lostintheworld]

yeah she probably is laughing at us

haha
i wish she was closer
and laughing with us
haha

yeah
what do you think about speeding up the rhythm of the ways to die? keep it neat but speed it up? or do you like as is?

[eli mercuree rue]

i did read it silly

well maybe it was self defense so you get like less years for that
right
..
hmm
maybe boylan should comment so we can know
i bet shes sittin back readin and laughin
thinkin
to herself
what idiots hahah

but yeah what about the types of ways to die
i wonder how many shes tried

oh shark attack the boy at myrtle beach saturday poor kid

[lostintheworld]

i also especially like the reverberate stanza with the stream of consciousness memories
and now locomotion is in my head. haha

crisp packets though- hmmmm must ponder further....

[lostintheworld]

well in her poem "voices" the alter egos are there...
6 of them i believe
so she killer three- or killed all and got like 8.5 years for each?
hmmmm
"voices"
the library card
and the central executive laughing at it all...

read it
tis a great poem of boylans

[eli mercuree rue]

well the sentence
yeah
but whos the they
a person or persons
atler egossssssssssss
is what im stickin with
umm
yeah killed an alter ego
remember voices i never see them anywhere else in her poems
she killed a part of herself
how
sad
and now we suffer

[lostintheworld]

i like the irony in the good behavoir part-
cause it's kinda like saying if you have good behavior (take care of self) you'll live longer-
but then also pack in the cigs- which is unhealthy but again will be used as trade to kill off others...haha

that's sweet.

[lostintheworld]

i like the rhythm and structure
the only thing i might change would be
in the list of ways of dying haveing them all run together sort of...
Slit wrists.Shark attack.Poisoning.Plane crash.Assassination

or soemthing to make the reader speed up at that part ya know? cause when i read it i speed up there.

sorry i'm so sporadic with my comments
i just keep thikning of different things everytime i read it
cause i like it so much

[eli mercuree rue]

there is never anything significant about
setting up
a death plot
corrin
jesus
not everyone likes to f**k with numbers
we just have weird obsessions

now the only people i kno who get fourty years
are those whove committed murder
so i say boylans killed herself
a number of times
maybe three with being sentenced to 60
so uh yeah

i dont kno what im talkin bout
im just
glad she didnt die
like three days ago