How much poetry
Is left in me
Is something I ponder

As I try
To make words
That will evoke
Something in you
Like recognition

That we speak the same language
Belong to the same tribe
Of liars who lie

Where words are usually in disguise
As in a costume drama

A world bounded by a story
And a script with characters
Complete with their own lines

To make a poem
To break out
To say we share the same need
To be heard and to speak
In our own voice
For our own self

The prison listens
As inmates tap out
Coded messages
From solitary cells

Signaling we are alive
Still here
Desperate as buried miners
Calling out

Listening for any sound
That might serve as a sign
That we might have been heard

I suppose
As to poetry
You could never run out

It would only be about
No longer listening